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SERMONS ON BIBLE CHARACTERS 


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SERMONS 


ON 

BIBLE CHARACTERS 


BY 

REV. EDWIN L. HARVEY 
»» 


PUBLISHED BY THE 

METROPOLITAN CHURCH ASSOCIATION 

WAUKESHA WISCONSIN 




Copyrighted 1909 

BY 

Metropolitan Church Association 


1 -D-12-09 


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PREFACE 

The Metropolitan Church Association was organized 
in the year 1899, with a view to presenting the gospel 
of Jesus Christ, without money and without price, to 
as many people as possible. 

As a result of its faithful preaching many people 
have become converted, and some whose gifts for the 
ministry were unquestioned, felt called of God to enter 
missionary work at home or in foreign fields. They 
felt, however, the necessity of a thorough training and 
a greater knowledge of religious beliefs and Bible doc- 
trines. Hence, of this necessity was born the Metro- 
politan Bible School, which is conducted upon the prin- 
ciples of faith in God alone. At the present writing 
(1909) this school numbers many scores of bright, in- 
telligent young people who are obeying the injunction: 
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman 
that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the 
word of truth'’ (2 Tim. 2: 15). 

An active campaign is being carried on constantly; 
an energetic warfare is waged against sin, and an earn- 
est endeavor made to win people to Christ and to lead 
them into the experience of holiness “without which no 
man shall see the Lord.” 


viii Sermons on Bible Characters 

Many who have passed through the course of train- 
ing prescribed by the School are today in various towns 
in the United States, in Wales and in India preaching 
the gospel and winning souls to Christ. 

A number of the sermons presented in this book 
were preached to audiences in the various towns in 
which the work of the Metropolitan Church Associa- 
tion is located, while some were preached directly to 
the Bible School students. 

With the prayer that the sermons contained herein 
may be of lasting benefit to those who read them, this 
book is sent forth. 


THE PUBLISHERS. 


CONTENTS 


SERMON ONE 

BELSHAZZAR — WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING 

PAGES 

Every life has its crisis — Belshazzar’s feast — The hand- 
writing on the wall — An awful solemnity — An ac- 
cusing conscience — A few people who will preach 
the truth — What the devil has to say — The Bel- 
shazzars of today — God has very exact balances — 
“Those proud hopes” — You are weighed and found 
wanting ....... 1-18 


SERMON TWO 

JACOB — ONE WHOM GOD EOVED 


Why did God love Jacob? — God’s method of awarding 
the birthright blessing — The first pair of kid gloves 
— How Ephraim and Manasseh were blessed — Par- 
ents are twenty years too late — A miniature 
swinging bridge — Jacob deceived his father — His 
checkered business career — Wasted years — Jacob 
wrestled with the angel and prevailed — Jacob de- 
ceived by his children — His family reunited — The 
reward for a full consecration . . . 19-46 


X 


Sermons on Bible Characters 


SERMON THREE 

JABEZ — BORN WITH SORROW 


PA.9R9 

Jabez was more honorable than, his brethren — Playing 
church — Blasting Hell Gate — Jabez prayed for the 
second blessing — Great things in store for God’s 
people — Holy meditation — God’s hand with Jabez — 
Peter and the net 47-62 

SERMON FOUR 

JOSEPH — numbered with transgressors 

Striking truths revealed in history of Joseph — Joseph’s 
coat a token of his father’s love — Joseph’s dream 
— Joseph sold to the Ishmaelites — God’s care over- 
shadowed him continually — In Potiphar’s house — 
Sheep’s teeth — God’s open, doors — Awaiting God’s 
time of deliverance — Corn in Egypt — The empty 
sack experience — How to reach the masses — The 
secret society broken up — Joseph made known to 
his brethren ...... 63-94 


SERMON FIVE 

JONADAB — THE RECHABITES’ LEADER 

The Rechabites were tested to prove their fidelity — 

God wanted them to be a separate people — A good 
record — God does not want a settling down — How 
leanness of soul will come — What Balaam should 
have done — How to deal with a backslider — Gideon 
obeyed God — What a preacher should be — Jehu’s 
meeting 95-114 


Contents 


xi 


SERMON SIX 

MOSES — DRAWN OUT TO DELIVER 

FAOU 

Pharaoh’s command — Moses’ blanket of prayer — Moses’ 
mother — Faith lessons — The will of God the strong- 
est armor — The Israelites multiplied under persecu- 
tion — God heard the cry of His people — Moses 
killed the Egyptian — Moses’ deliberate choice — The 
two women as types — Forty years of training in. a 
desert . . .... . 115-134 


SERMON SEVEN 

MOSES — FAITH TRIUMPHANT 

(Continuation of Preceding Sermon) 

God sent Moses — Moses had faith and courage — Miriam 
and the women praised God in the dance — Moses 
had his tests — A wilderness experience is not pleas- 
ing to God — The law a schoolmaster — Moses said 
“yes” to God — Moses before Pharaoh — The effect 
of the word of God — The reward which Moses 
received ....... 135-158 


SERMON EIGHT 

ACHAN — THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 

The official board meeting — A true church of God will 
not have sinners as members — The victory at Jeri- 
cho — The defeat at Ai — God does ferret out covered 
sin. — Achan’s sin — Every sinner has stolen golden 
opportunities — Athletics, salvation and happiness — 
Achan punished — His family also had to suffer — 
God’s judgments are sure to overtake the sinner 159-172 


xii Sermons on Bible Characters 

SERMON NINE 

ABRAHAM — THE FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL 

PAGR8 

The Christian life a life of faith— God’s first direction 
to Abraham — The devil lies with a purpose — Launch 
out into the deep — Why many who seek do not 
find holiness — Abraham’s inheritance — Abraham 

and Melchizedek — God can deliver from the carnal 
mind — Paul’s credentials as a minister of God — 
Self-denial will be rewarded . . . 173-196 

SERMON TEN 

RAHAB — THE SANCTIFIED HOTEL KEEPER 


Twelve spies sent — Canaan a good land — Pastors should 
feed the flock — A sample bunch of grapes — Joshua 
sent two spies to Jericho — Rahab’s agreement with 
the spies — The red cord brings reproach — Rahab 
stands true — The day Joshua came — Jericho de- 
stroyed — Rahab and her household saved . 197-218 

SERMON ELEVEN 

LAZARUS — DESTINY DISCLOSED 


Solemn words — This Bible story refutes the heresy of 
a second probation — Money would be saved if Bi- 
bles were believed — The Christian’s mansion in 
Heaven — No chance for missionary work after this 
life — People would not repent if one should rise 
from the dead — Soul-murderers — Angels at Lazarus’ 
deathbed — No easy route to Heaven — Jesus was 
under great reproach — First step costs; next steps 
pay — The blood-washed throng in Heaven . 219-242 


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BELSHAZZAR 

WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING 


“O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnez- 
zar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and hon- 
our : * * *. And thou his son, O Belshazzar, hast not 
humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; but 
hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they 
have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, 
and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk 
wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, 
and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, 
nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath 
is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: then 
was the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing 
was written. And this is the writing that was written, 
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the in- 
terpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy 
kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the 
balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is 
divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. * * * In 
that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. 
And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about 
threescore and two years old.” Dan. 5: 18-31. 


SERMONS ON 


BIBLE CHARACTERS 


SERMON ONE 


BELSHAZZAR 


WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING 

HERE is a crisis in every life. Our life begins. 



1 and it is an impossibility for us to avoid finish- 
ing it somewhere. 

Belshazzar had a father by the name of Nebuchad- 
nezzar, who was the king of Babylon. Babylon was 
the pride of the then known world, and Nebuchadnezzar 
became so proud and lifted up over the magnificence 
of his kingdom, that God had to teach him a lesson ; 
had to take him from among the dwellings of men 
and let him eat grass like an ox, until seven times passed 
over him and he realized that the God who rules in 
the Heavens is God and there is none other. God is 
going to bring every one of us into judgment. The 
wise man said, “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; 
and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, 
and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight 
of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things 
God will bring thee into judgment.” 

God knew all about the king in his palace, and about 
Daniel in his house. God knows all about how a man 


4 Sermons on Bible Characters 

lives. Belshazzar was preparing a great feast, and 
he ordered the sacred vessels which had been taken from 
the temple at Jerusalem, brought to the feast. When 
they asked him what they should pour the wine into, 
and what they should use for wine glasses, Belshazzar 
thought of those holy, consecrated goblets, and he told 
his servants to get those most sacred and holy things 
to drink out of at his feast. They brought them 
and the feast began. They begin giving the wine out 
in the sacred goblets but as they are quaffing it, 
suddenly the king looks up at the wall, his knees knock 
together with consternation, and his face turns to a 
deadly pallor. An awful solemnity falls upon that ban- 
quet chamber and those present are frightened be- 
yond measure. The king looks at the handwriting on 
the wall, which no man in the land, without God’s help, 
could interpret. He calls in all the wise men, sooth- 
sayers and astrologers, the men who were drawing sal- 
aries for interpreting, and asks them, “What is that 
writing on the wall?” None of all that company can 
interpret the writing, and the king does not know what 
to do; until up steps some one and says, “There is a 
man around here who has the interpretation of dreams, 
etc.” When God wanted to get a message to a man, 
He could get it to him. God showed Daniel all about 
the writing. 

Daniel went into the presence of the king and Bel- 
shazzar said, “I have even heard of thee, that the spirit 
of the gods is in thee, and that light and understanding 
and excellent wisdom is found in thee. And now the 


Belshazzar — Weighed and Found Wanting 5 

wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in before 
me, that they should read this writing, and make known 
unto me the interpretation thereof: but they could not 
shew the interpretation of the thing: and I have heard 
of thee, that thou canst make interpretations, and dis- 
solve doubts: now if thou canst read the writing, and 
make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt 
be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about thy 
neck, and shalt be the third ruler in the kingdom,” 
Daniel looked at him and told him to keep his gifts 
and his reward. He did not need the king’s reward; 
but he said he would give the interpretation of the writ- 
ing. 

Brethren, an accusing conscience is not an agreeable 
companion for a man to have. If he gets down to pray, 
he sees before him all the time things that he has not 
made right. He remembers the ungodly thoughts that 
have been in his mind; he thinks of that awful deed 
he did ten or fifteen or twenty years ago. God will 
make it float on the river of his memory, and his con- 
science will continually convict him; it will keep haunt- 
ing him until he comes to God Almighty and gets the 
blood of Christ to wash his heart white; when con- 
science can point any way and every way and yet not 
condemn him, then he will have boldness in the day of 
Judgment. Your memory, your conscience is tonight 
pointing straight at those things which you have left 
unconfessed. 

The king looked up and said, “What is the inter- 
pretation of that writing on the wall?” God wants 

2 


6 Sermons on Bible Characters 

that that writing on the wall shall refresh the memory of 
some one who shall get this message. God Almighty 
is writing your record. He is weighing you in the bal- 
ances. Daniel looked at the king fearlessly and said, 
“Well, you know how it was with your father. He 
was ruler of the greatest city in the world, and he was 
so proud over what he had done that he walked around 
the city and said, ‘Is not this great Babylon, the great- 
est city in the world, that I have built for the house 
of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for 
the honor of my majesty?’ About the time the last 
word left his mouth, the curse of God settled around 
his neck; and they drove him out with the beasts of 
the field, and let him eat grass until seven times had 
passed over him, until he knew that God ruled in the 
kingdom of men.” Sinners do not think that God 
intends to punish them, and so they go on in their 
wicked ways; but God is going to bring them into Judg- 
ment for all their sins. He looks down upon the 
persons who committed that wicked deed in the dark 
that time, and He knows when their time is coming. 
God is letting your wickedness go on for a little time, 
but soon He is going to hurl you from the place where 
you are, and you will be brought before Him at the 
Judgment. 

Belshazzar found in Daniel a person who dared look 
him in the face and tell him the truth. Thank God for 
that kind of a preacher, one who did not care what it 
would cost to tell the truth. That is the kind God wants 
in these days. Diogenes took a lantern and went 


Belshazzar — Weighed and Found Wanting 7 

through the streets of Athens hunting for a man, and 
Jeremiah was told to go about the streets of Jerusalem 
looking for a man. Daniel was the only one in the great 
city of Babylon whom God could use to interpret 
the writing; God helped Daniel when he stood before 
Belshazzar. It costs something to tell the whole truth. 
Think of the holy people since Daniel’s time, whose 
heads have been taken off because they told men the 
truth. From John the Baptist’s time, down to the pres- 
ent age, men and women have been beheaded, or killed 
in other ways, because they told the truth. It has al- 
ways cost something to tell the truth. God has had a 
few men from the age of Nathan right up to the pres- 
ent day, who have had backbone enough, to walk up, 
and look people in the face, and tell them the truth, no 
matter who they were. 

I suppose, that before Daniel went in to see Bel- 
shazzar, the devil said to him: “You should soften 
that message. Why, you can be prime minister of this 
country if you will ease up a little on that message.” 
But, no, Daniel looked the king in the two eyes and 
told him the whole truth. Brethren, if you tell the 
whole truth to the people, it will make a very warm 
place for you sometimes. We have been in places where 
the people have been so enraged because of the truth 
that was told them, that they wanted to get us out of 
town. Have you ever been in such a place? 

God looked upon Daniel and said, “Will you tell 
the whole truth? Will you tell this king exactly 
what I tell you to?” And Daniel looked up and told 


8 Sermons on Bible Characters 

God that he would tell the whole truth, and he did it. 
Daniel had been faithful about praying unto God and 
he was ready for the blessing of the gift of interpre- 
tation to be given him by the Holy Ghost. It was 
given to the man who was going to be true to God. 
He had prayed, and God had given him the interpreta- 
tion. I do not doubt but that he pondered the matter 
over. He counted the cost; and the devil told him that 
the day when he should tell the truth to Belshazzar, 
would be the last day that he would live on this earth. 
Doubtless the devil has told many of you, that this would 
be the last day you would live a Christian life. Many 
times he has said like things of God’s church and work, 
and told us that the next day was going to be our last ; 
but, brethren, about the time the devil has the obituary 
written to be put into the paper, God sends deliverance. 

Daniel said to Belshazzar, “These goblets belong to 
God and you are misusing them. You are using them 
to banquet all these wicked persons, and you are drink- 
ing wine tonight out of those sacred goblets. They 
are sanctified to God, and He will not allow this 
misuse. He has put you into His scale and weighed 
you, and your kingdom is numbered. MENE; God 
hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; 
Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found want- 
ing. PERES ; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to 
the Medes and Persians.” 

The king of old did not like the message, yet he be- 
lieved it was true. During the time that Belshazzar 
had been reveling and enjoying his wicked self, Darius 


Belshazzar — Weighed and Found Wanting 9 

the Median had dug a canal which turned the river Eu- 
phrates into another channel; and the army came in on 
its river bed and captured the city, and Belshazzar was 
slain that night. Darius entered and said, “This is 
my town,” and Belshazzar was slain like a dog. There 
is not a sinner, who will reject this warning but who 
wilt suffer the consequences and be damned. 

A sinner says, “Why do you say these things ?” I say 
them because you are Belshazzar. Your body is sacred, 
and that cup which holds your brain is a sacred vessel 
that God wants, and you are taking that sacred gift and 
using it for the devil. Those thoughts of yours, that 
voice, your time, and talents, are God’s, and right into 
those sacred vessels of God’s you are pouring the wine 
of worldly pleasure, and drinking it to the dregs. Some 
of these days, your knees are going to knock together, 
and the death rattle will be in your throat. You will 
not call on any Daniel to interpret the sound, but you 
will think of the message which God is now giving to 
you: “Weighed in the balances, and found wanting.” 

Some of you have seen balances so accurate that you 
might lay a piece of paper in the pan and get its exact 
weight; or, take two pieces of paper of the same size 
and weight and the scale will balance exactly ; then put 
a pencil mark on one of the pieces of paper and put it 
back on the scale and the pan holding the paper with 
the pencil mark on it, will go away down because the 
scale is so accurate and so nicely adjusted. But God 
has balances that weigh more accurately than any scales 
of man's invention. Moses in his law said, “Thou shalt 


io Sermons on Bible Characters 

not commit adultery,” but Jesus said, in the New Tes- 
tament, that you cannot even look on a woman to lust 
after her but that that single look will cast you into Hell. 
You are put onto one side of the balance, and the other 
side goes down, and you go up; you are weighed and 
found wanting. You cannot think an evil thought, but 
that suddenly you go up and the other scale pan goes 
down ; for, the Bible says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, 
so he is.” God Almighty can sanctify your intellect 
and give you such pure, white thoughts that the angels 
will approve of them. You will remember the night 
when the Spirit slips God’s thoughts into your head. 

There are balances which are very fine. I will 
take my Bible for a moment or two and see if I can 
weigh you. The first weight is not very large, but I 
will put it in: “If any man love the world, the love of 
the Father is not in him.” Now, how are you on lov- 
ing the world? How do you stand on love of the world? 
Some people say, “Oh, I don’t care anything about 
dress.” But that is not the only thing included in a 
love for the world. Do you wish that you were back 
in that old worldly life again? 

Perhaps you are now engaged in God’s work. Is 
there something in your heart that says, “I wish I were 
back there receiving the smiles and approval of my 
friends. I am sorry that I have to get such unkind 
letters from my mother and father. I wish that they 
would send me money before very long, to pay my 
fare home.” 

Do you think: I used to have such an easy life. 


Belshazzar — Weighed and Found Wanting ii 

Here I am working harder than when I got ten dollars 
a day? (For there isn’t anybody with sense enough 
to hold a revival, but that could go out and earn a 
salary if he chose to do it.) God’s Word says, “If 
any man love the world, the love of the Father is not 
in him.” 

“Well,” says some one, “I believe we all sin a little 
every day in word, thought and deed.” Well, if you 
sin a little, when you are put onto the scale pan, up 
you go and down goes the other side. 

What does it mean to be weighed and found want- 
ing? It means, that if a man is not saved, he 
is going to be weighed in the scale of God Al- 
mighty, and found wanting. “Well,” says some one, 
“all in the world I care for is to go to card parties.” 
But God says, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” 
God’s Word is true and He will never take you to Heav- 
en if you sin. Thank God, that He gave us these 
verses. Brethren, we are not afraid of the way that 
God tells us to live. 

How are you on self-denial? “Well,” some one says, 
“I don’t know anything about self-denial. I have all 
the comforts of life I want.” Now Jesus said, “If any 
man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take 
up his cross, and follow me.” Do you lead a life of 
self-denial each day? When you have time for prayer, 
do you say, “Well, I believe I will spend this time not 
in prayer to God; I will do something else”? The 
Christian’s life is one of self-denial, and, unless you 
deny yourself, you are not going to get to Heaven. We 


12 


Sermons on Bibee Characters 


will put that little weight in there, and we see the beam 
go down, and you go up. 

Here is a half hour, and you say you will use that 
in which to study the Bible. Some one comes in and 
says, “Oh, did you hear the awful thing Mr. So-and-so 
did?” and instead of studying your Bible, you listen, and 
the half hour is soon gone. We will put this little weight 
in, “Redeeming the time,” and up you go, and down 
goes the beam; you are found wanting. 

“Yes,” you say, “1 have $10,000 laid up for a rainy 
day, and I am willing to take a trip to Europe.” You 
are willing to spend it on yourself, but you are not 
willing to give it to the Lord. Now we will put that 
little weight in the scales, “Whosoever he be of you that 
forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” 
When we look at the men with bank accounts showing 
that they have thousands and millions of dollars, and 
read that little mark on the scale, “Whosoever he be 
of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot 
be my disciple,” we see the greater part of humanity 
going up and the scale beam going down, for they have 
been weighed and found wanting. 

“Well,” says some one, “I believe every one ought 
to carry a little life insurance to leave for his family 
after his death.” The Scripture says, “Leave thy father- 
less children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy 
widows trust in me.” We put the weights on one side, 
and the husband with the life insurance on the other 
side, and just as he goes up, and the other side goes 
down, he flings his old life insurance policy overboard 


Belshazzar — Weighed and Found Wanting 13 

and the scale begins to balance. Are you willing to 
step into God Almighty’s balance tonight? 

If there is anything that the devil would like to do, 
it is to damn your soul. He hates to see the balances 
swinging. The devil sees a man measuring up, and he 
hops onto the scale, tries to attract your attention, and 
does what he can to overbalance you. He does that be- 
cause he hates you. He furnishes rocks for people to 
use to knock you off of the scale. Stephen stepped 
upon the scale and the devil was enraged; he tried to 
knock Stephen out by breaking his skull. The devil 
kept piling on rocks, to see if he could disturb the poise 
of the balance; but the Lord just reached down and 
took Stephen’s spirit, and away he went. 

If you reach an exact balance on the scales of God, 
the world will truly hate you. “Marvel not, my breth- 
ren, if the world hate you.” “Well,” says some farmer, 
“I have made up my mind to raise my crop, and buy 
a piano for my daughter, and to enjoy myself.” You 
are not planning to do that, if you intend to get to 
Heaven. You are going to turn your back on it all. 
If a band of robbers had met Jesus and His disciples 
on the road and held them up and searched their pockets, 
they would have found that they had left all. A man 
is perfectly safe when he is sanctified wholly, for if men 
should hold him up, about all they could get from him, 
would be “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” etc. It would be 
surprising if they could get much more than that. 

It is a wonderful satisfaction to us, that our walk 
with God is just what He wishes it to be. We can 


i4 Sermons on Bible Characters 

take this Bible up, and, by the grace of God turn 
through Genesis and clear on through Revelation; and, 
like John, eat it, and it tastes good. If there is any- 
thing that God has for me between the leaves of this 
Bock, I want to know about it. Do you? 

A young man walks through the room, and when 
he kneels down to pray one can see that the soles of his 
shoes are pretty nearly worn out; and here is another 
young man, and the mail brings him ten dollars. One 
young man has no shoes fit to wear, and the other young 
fellow has a money order for ten dollars. What does 
the Bible say? Here is the weight and we will put it 
in. “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him 
that hath none.” If he sees his brother have need, 
“and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, 
how dwelleth the love of God in him?” You can put 
the money in your pocket, and go around shouting all 
you want to; but it will do you no good, for there is 
a fellow who has only one pair of old shoes, while you 
have the price of four or five of them in your pocket. 
“Well,” you say, “I have only one pair of shoes.” That 
makes no difference. You have the money for another 
pair in your pocket. That is why the millionaires are 
going to Hell, because they will not help or give to the 
man who has need. A man like that will go around with 
no testimony, and with no confidence in any one; when 
the sin is not in some other person, it is in himself, be- 
cause he has money, and, seeing his brother who has 
need, hangs on to what he has. The safe way is to be 
sure to see that your neighbor gets much more than you. 


Belshazza* — Weighed and Found Wanting 15 

One day, some one sent me a five dollar bill who 
positively was uncomfortable until the money had been 
given. He said, “No, I don’t want that money. I want 
you to give it to some one who needs it more than I.” 
It is that little something that you are hanging onto that 
has been withholding the showers of God’s grace from 
you for months. You reach down into the corners of 
your pockets and empty them and soon you will feel 
the refreshing showers of God’s grace falling upon your 
soul, and you will be so filled with the power of God. 
that people will be asking you to pray for them. They 
will want to get the same kind of salvation that you 
have. God wants every last one of us to be like an 
oasis in a desert. You start on a buggy ride; you go 
down streets, through alleys, and finally strike the boule- 
vard ; then rein up in front of the hothouse, go inside 
and see the beautiful flowers, the banana trees, and the 
lovely palm trees, right in the middle of winter. God 
says the spirit in us should be like that all the time, 
so that people will smell the fragrance of God. God 
does not want us to be dry, old, and no good spiritually. 
Thank God we can constantly live in the sunshine of 
His love. God Almighty will feed our souls, and make 
the flowers to bloom and send out their fragrance to 
other souls. 

“Weighed and found wanting.” That is an awful 
condition, a terrible calamity; but thank God, we can 
be like that dear old saint that recently passed away to 
Heaven, who, when she came up to her last moments, 
wanted to sing, “On the Way.” She felt the power of 


16 Sermons on Bible Characters 

an endless life in her soul, and upon awakening in the 
mornings she would be disappointed to find that she 
was not on the inside of the pearly portals. 

God will not force you to do all the things commanded 
in the Bible, but, thank God, there are persons who are 
willing to walk in the light as He sheds it on their path- 
way. There was a man only the other day who wanted 
to pray through and get the fire on his soul. He had 
just finished his breakfast, and then asked us to pray 
for him. Though there was to be a meeting at 2:30 
P. M. he was so in earnest that he said to us, 
‘‘No, I cannot wait until then.” In praying with him, 
we found that his business was in his way, and he 
said he would give it up. He had received letters tell- 
ing him he would go crazy if he went with us, and that 
we were the most wicked people in the world; but the 
more they said against us, the more he felt that this 
is the narrow way that will lead to everlasting life. He 
put his business out of the way, and kept walking in 
the light. 

Are you ready for God to put you onto the balances 
now? Suppose God takes the plumb line and places it 
beside your experience, and here and there your ex- 
perience bulges out. What will you do about it? When 
the storms come and the winds blow, will your house 
stand? Are you building on a good foundation? Are 
you founded on the Rock? What are you going to do? 
I was reading in a paper of a man who started to 
jump, and he jumped, and jumped; and by and by, it 
seems that he got the idea that if he jumped one more 


Belshazzar — Weighed and Found Wanting 17 

time he would jump right into Heaven. He made one 
last jump, landed on the pavement below, broke his 
skull, and died. You cannot jump into Heaven over 
a crooked life and unforgiven sins. The devil tells you : 
“Think of the opportunities you will waste if you get 
saved, — those proud hopes.” But if you try to carry 
them out, those proud hopes are going to be dashed 
to pieces, and you will be found wailing in the regions 
of the damned very soon, unless you repent. I heard, 
some time ago, of some men who gathered in a little 
room and did the most awful things. They were in- 
fidels, and, I believe they even administered the sac- 
rament of the Lord’s Supper to a dog, and performed 
rites and ceremonies in most sacrilegious ways. There 
were thirty-six of those men. and, I believe, in five years 
seven of those men were killed, and not one of them 
died a natural death. People go along paying no at- 
tention to God. They reject God, they turn His plead- 
ing aside and trample under foot His precious blood 
Do you think God is going to stand that much longer ? 
The Bible says, “If any man defile the temple of God, 
him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, 
which temple ye are.” 

“Weighed in the balances, and found wanting.” 
“But,” you say, “this king was so rich, and he 
had so much power that he was the power of the world 
at that time.” Yes, that is so; but God in a moment 
of time destroyed him utterly. You have to do what 
the Mayor of your city may tell you to do, or be pun- 
ished. If he were to tell you to get out of town you 


18 Sermons on Bible Characters 

would have to go, and yet you curse God, and profane 
His holy Name. You are weighed and found wanting. 

How do you weigh on the ten commandments ? How 
do you weigh on praying without ceasing? How do 
you weigh on reading God’s Word? Do the scales 
balance, or do you go up and the other side down? 
Brethren, if you are sanctified, the scales will exactly 
balance all the time. 


JACOB 

ONE WHOM GOD LOVED 


“When Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by 
our father Isaac; (for the children being not yet born, 
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose 
of God according to election might stand, not of works, 
but of him that calleth;) it was said unto her, The elder 
'Shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I 
loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? 
Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.” Rom. 
9 : 10 - 14 . 


SERMON TWO 


JACOB 

ONE WHOM GOD LOVED 

S OME very astonishing statements are made in the 
Bible, and as you have studied the life of Jacob, 
and have seen how crooked he was, you may have 
wondered why God loved him. It is not difficult to 
understand how it was that Abraham should be loved by 
God; he who was obedient to Him, walked right out 
of heathendom, breasted the storms, outrode them, did 
everything in his power to please God, and was His 
companion, reached Heaven and rendered his account 
with joy and not with grief. Isaac, Jacob’s father, was 
an excellent man; he had a good bringing up, walked 
carefully, and was, in a sense, a type of Christ. He 
was the only begotten son of Abraham by Sarah, and 
the Scripture tells us that Isaac went to Heaven. But 
the surprise of surprises is that Jacob was taken to Heav- 
en. God Almighty has announced Himself as the God 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Will a man whose 
God is the Lord deceive his father, and rob his brother? 
Let us see. Turning over to the New Testament we 
read that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob shall be seen in 
the Kingdom of God. One would think that a study 
of the life of a man whom God took to Heaven, would 
3 


22 


Sermons on Bibee Characters 


be profitable, and we shall find it so if God will help 
us to learn the lessons which He meant that it should 
teach. 

Jacob was a member of the covenant family and 
was only two generations from the Father of the Faith- 
ful; but while there is great advantage in good birth, 
and the blessings follow down to the third and fourth 
generation of those who love God, yet good birth of 
itself does not give a pass into Heaven. Isaac mar- 
ried the woman whom God had selected and chosen 
to be the mother of Jacob, but at one point, at least, 
she failed to trust God, and the life of Jacob was not 
upright and honorable all the way through. He re- 
pented, however, and found his way to Heaven. 

Before Jacob was born, his mother (Rebekah) be- 
gan to love him. God had told her that he would be 
the ruler. She must have lived close to God, and she 
no doubt told her little boys, as she fed them from 
day to day, of the greatness and righteousness of 
Abraham, their grandfather. She loved the boy whom 
God loved, and, like Sarah (who, in view of the fact 
that God’s promise of a son to Abraham was delayed, 
set about in her own way to assist God in His plans), 
she makes a plan of her own for her family. 
The covenant that God made with Abraham was not 
to be lightly esteemed. There in the quiet tent life 
Jacob had time to think upon the promise, — the won- 
derful covenant that God made with Abraham. If 
Rebekah told him of the strange saying, “The elder 
shall serve the younger,” Jacob did not fail to ask 


Jacob — One Whom God Loved 23 

some questions which were not easy to answer. Turn 
where she would, the problem confronted her, “How 
can the promise be fulfilled?” 

Do you suppose the wonderful words of God had 
failed to fire Jacob’s imagination, and fill his young 
mind with visions of coming greatness and glory? 
If he had heard the story of his father’s miraculous 
deliverance from death, he knew something of the 
power of God. The promise that God made to Re- 
bekah was not conditional. He did not say, “Rebekah, 
if you will do thus and so, I will make Jacob a great 
man,” but, “The elder shall serve the younger. * * * 
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” We shall 
learn as w-e read Jacob’s history, that it will be far 
better for us and for others, if we let God have His 
way about how and when He keeps His promises. 

Did you ever wonder how God might have gotten 
the blessing to Jacob if he had not accepted his mother’s 
present of the first pair of kid gloves of which the 
Bible speaks, and with them deceived his father? Look 
at the closing scene of Israel’s life. Joseph brought 
Ephraim and Manasseh to the bedside of his dying 
father, Israel, who, strengthening himself, gave the 
blessing of the birthright to the one to whom God, in 
His sovereignty, ordained that it should be given. 

“Ephraim,” God said, speaking through the prophet 
Jeremiah, “is my firstborn.” God reserved the right 
to bestow the biessing upon Ephraim, the younger; and 
notwithstanding the failing eyesight of Israel, which 
made it impossible for him to discern clearly, he was 


24 Sermons on Bible Characters 

not suffered to make any mistake. Ephraim was 
placed under his left hand, and Manasseh under his 
right hand. How did Ephraim get the blessing? Is- 
rael stretched out his arms and laid his right hand 
upon the h^ad of Ephraim, who was the younger, and 
his left hand upon the head of Manasseh, who was 
the older, “guiding his hands wittingly.” Joseph 
thought there was some mistake; but the Holy Ghost 
makes no mistakes. It would be far better to do 
without a blessing than to get one by dealing as Jacob 
dealt with Esau, when he took unjust advantage of 
his brother’s weakened and hungry condition in order 
to buy the birthright, and secured it by deception. In 
the case of Ephraim and Manasseh, it seemed that the 
older would certainly get the blessing; but the patri- 
arch guided his hands “wittingly” in the form of a 
cross, thus giving the younger son the right hand bless- 
ing. The best way to be blessed is to be blessed in 
the Cross. This is God’s method of awarding the birth- 
right blessing, and the spiritual blessings for which it 
stands, are only ours through the Cross. You can 
steal a person’s experience, you can get them to sell 
out; but it will not make you rich. 

If Rebekah had taught Jacob aright, and they had 
both been satisfied to trust God and walk in His ways, 
Jacob would truly have died out to ever getting the 
birthright in his way. Esau would have expected it, 
and would, perhaps, have been looked up to for many 
years; but when the time came for them to kneel down 
side by side before the aged Isaac, God who directs 


Jacob — One Whom God Loved 25 

the planets in their courses, would have seen to it 
that the right hand of Isaac fell on Jacob’s head. He 
would, perhaps, have received the blessing as a youth, 
have been crucified to future prospects and have been 
saved a life of wandering, fearfulness, and turmoil, 
which almost terminated in death at his brothers 
hand. Let us learn by his example, as we study for a 
little while his checkered career, to say in all things, 
“Thy will be done,” and to be satisfied without try- 
ing to force God to work according to the plan our 
finite minds may lay for Him. God’s way is the best 
all the time and everywhere. 

You who feel like calling Rebekah a wicked or a 
foolish mother, beware. You may be doing the same 
with your children. Only here and there can be 
found a parent who will trust God. The training of 
the average child is of such a character that it is fill- 
ing the dens of iniquity in this world, and is crowd- 
ing the corridors of Hell, which has enlarged itself, 
to make room for the souls that are going there day 
after day on account of the way parents help to keep 
alive all manner of vice upon the earth. 

God says, “Train up a child in the way he should 
go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” 
Why are so many boys reeling on the streets today? 
Why are little children smoking and shaking dice in 
the back alleys of our cities? Why do half-grown boys 
hide away in lofts and behind closed shutters, and 
learn to gamble, and why are young men staggering 
around in front of saloons? They are following the 


26 Sermons on Bible Characters 

example of ungodly ancestry. The virus of the pit that 
has for years coursed through the veins of the parents 
will poison the blood of coming generations. 

To increase the awful torture and torment that an 
ungodly mother will have to suffer through all eter- 
nity, she will scarcely have opened her eyes in Hell 
before she will see beside her, one of her beautiful 
daughters whom she so cruelly wronged by failing to 
pray her into the Kingdom. There unsaved fathers 
will be cursed by sons whom they have eternally 
wronged by the life that they lived. Many parents 
have made good resolutions, and said, “I will repent 
and get saved,” but when they come to ask prayers 
for their unconverted children, they are often twenty 
years too late. The “wandering boy,” whom we are 
asked to pray for, is dying in some den of iniquity. 
These grief-stricken parents should have commenced 
to pray and labor for the salvation of their children 
twenty years earlier. 

Sometimes people feel insulted when we preach that 
the reason licentiousness and all manner of wicked- 
ness is rampant in the country is on account of the 
way parents have trained their children, and because 
of the evil heritage they have bestowed upon them. It 
should not insult a man to tell him the truth. If 
you are insulted by the truth that is preached from 
the Word of God, get saved and sanctified and so 
govern your life by the grace of God that you will 
not feel angry enough to walk out of a meeting where 
the truth is preached, before the sermon is half finished. 


Jacob — One Whom God Loved 27 

Jacob was a beautiful little boy, and it was easy 
for Rebekah, as favors came along, to throw them 
his way. She would place Jacob upon one knee and 
Esau upon the other, or, perhaps, Esau would amuse 
himself upon the floor. Esau was very cunning, but 
Jacob was a boy who stood by his mother, and she 
taught 'him many things ; among other lessons, was 
that of how to tell white ( ?) lies. She taught him 
that it was all right to deceive and tell falsehoods if 
his motive was to get the blessing. You never trained 
your children that way, I suppose, only as they may 
have gotten a hint that that was the way to do, 
when they heard you send the servant to the door to 
tell the person who rang the bell that you were not 
at home. Business men have a way of helping their 
employees to learn these ways, and it means much to 
the one who learns the lesson. God says, “All liars, 
shall have their part in the lake which burneth with 
fire and brimstone. ,, 

Isaac favored Esau. Esau brought in good veni- 
son. Esau was a cunning hunter, and perhaps a good 
cook. When he went into the field to hunt and brought 
back good, tender meat and prepared a savory dish, 
Isaac was well pleased, and possibly made up his mind 
that perhaps there was some mistake, and that it 
would be all right after all to give Esau the blessing. 
But God Almighty, sitting yonder in the heavens, had 
said what Jacob was to be, and that Esau should serve 
him, and if God tells you anything, it is perfectly safe 
to rest on what God says and plan your life accord- 


28 Sermons on Bible Characters 

ingly. What God says is true, regardless of how it 
may seem to be, and regardless of how impossible it 
may appear from your point of view. Human vision 
is very limited, very contracted. We are shortsighted 
at best; but God’s eye can take in the universe at a 
glance, and it is quite safe to believe what He says. 
“His word is settled forever in Heaven.” The right- 
eous “shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, 
that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also 
shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall pros- 
per. The ungodly,” God says, “are not so : but are 
like the chaff which the wind driveth away.” Every- 
where in all lines of business, people are trying to 
overreach and take advantage of weaker ones. Grocery- 
men, dry goods men, tradesmen of every kind, as well 
as professional men are planning how much they can 
get and how little they can give. God says the wicked 
are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. 

It is easy to plan out a way for God to bless you. 
Jacob’s mother made up her mind that she would get 
the blessing for him, and she was sure by the way that 
Isaac enjoyed wild meat, that he would bless the one 
who would hand some to him. She could almost trust 
God; in fact, she could trust Him to do, with her 
help, what He had promised for her son, Jacob. Did 
you ever see a mother like that? It must take much 
faith (?) on the part of you mothers to believe that God 
can bless your daughter greatly after you have suc- 
ceeded in getting her married off to some beer-drink- 
ing man; and to believe that God will bless your boy 


Jacob — One; Whom God Loved 29 

whom He called to the foreign mission field, after you 
graduate him from the medical college and get him 
married to some butterfly of society with whom he 
cannot live peaceably. It would be better for your 
children to get saved and sanctified, and, if the will of 
God be so, remain unmarried. 

You never teach your children to deceive? You 
never dress your boys up to appear to be what they 
are not? I wonder if you ever helped your daughter 
to deceive people by the way she dressed and acted? 
With all the fear that women have of rats and mice, 
one would think they would be loath to puff their 
hair with rats, and to tog up in regalia not their own, 
until they look worse than they naturally would. God 
can tolerate a respectable dog that cannot help grow- 
ing yellow hair; but the vain creatures that bleach 
their hair until it is part yellow, and part red, and 
part white, are you, let me ask, expecting God to 
bless them? Who is responsible for that display of 
vanity ? Some father or mother, perhaps, who does 
not believe in salvation and praising the Lord. God 
will hold parents accountable for the make-up that 
their children wear. If a person were to get con- 
verted, it would not take many shots to knock off the 
hat that is ornamented with birds. Maybe you think 
God is pleased to see a young woman wearing a scoop 
shovel hat that looks, when she turns around, like 
a miniature swinging bridge. 

I will not promise that this story is true; but I heard 
about a man who fell into the hands of cannibals 


30 Sermons on Bible Characters 

and they thought they would eat him; but after taking 
off an imitation foot and unscrewing a false arm, re- 
moving his false teeth and one of his eyes, they said. 
“That fellow has done been eat before.” Separate from 
some people that which is artificial in their make-up, 
and you would come to a similar conclusion. The les- 
son is that God will bless the real rather than the 
artificial. You may seem to have salvation, people 
may say you have salvation, you may be baptized and 
confirmed; but how is your life? Is God’s blessing upon 
you when you come in, and when you go out, does He 
bless you and what you do, and cause you to prosper? 
“The ungodly are not so.” 

Here is a young boy, and as his mother helps him 
to put on the gloves, he says, “How am I now?” She 
says, “I think you are all right.” It is one thing to 
hear some one say they think you are all right, and quite 
another thing to be all right. 

Jacob bows to receive the blessing and the father 
says, “Are you Esau?” “Yes,” said Jacob, “I am Esau,” 
and he said “yes” because his mother had given him 
lessons in telling falsehoods. What is railroading the 
young people into Hell? The example of parents. No 
one escapes the infection of sin and there are verv 
few people who grow to maturity without having taken 
a few things here or there that did not belong to them, 
or without having told a few things that were not true. 
You never told your children to do that, but you did it 
when you were small. God says He will visit the ini- 
quity of the parents upon the children unto the third 


Jacob — One Whom God Loved 31 

and fourth generation, and the law is inexorable : your 
repentance does not change the law. 

God wants every one to be converted early in life. 
How different Jacob’s life would have been if he had 
trusted God. He would have been spared the long 
years of wandering; and think of the crooked paths out 
of which he would have been kept. He had no sooner 
done that wicked thing, than Esau wished to kill him. 
Jacob had an enemy on his track who was determined 
that he should die at the hands of the man he had 
wronged. Sin brings sure penalty, and no man or wom- 
an ever did a wicked thing, but they will meet it 
some day, and unless they repent there will be no 
escape. Jacob was compelled to leave the country, and 
where could he hide? His mother thought of the old 
home from which Abraham came, and said, “Jacob, go 
back to Padan-aram, to your relatives.” He flees to 
the old country and thinks he will take him a wife. 

Isaac, when he came to the subject of getting a 
wife, was more fortunate. Abraham did not allow him 
to go back into the old country. When the servant 
said, “If she will not come, shall I take Isaac?” Abra- 
ham said, “No, God called me out, and Isaac shall not 
put "his foot into that country.” No doubt, had he gone 
back, the Bible would have read very differently. When 
you are called out from among a backslidden people, 
stay out. 

Jacob started on his journey and traveled until he 
was very tired, then he lay down to rest. He had a 
fine dream of a long ladder and angels running up 


32 Sermons on Bible Characters 

and down, and I suppose that he thought he was in a 
holiness meeting; but when he awoke he still had a 
rock for a pillow. He could not take the ladder with 
him, and so he journeyed on. At last he reached the 
old country, found his relatives, and began to work. 
He there met a beautiful young woman named Rachel, and 
made a bargain with the gentleman who was her father. 
He was told he could have her for his wife by serving 
for seven years, and so Jacob worked and did what there 
was to be done on the farm for seven years. If you 
have ever worked on a farm you know what it meant 
to Jacob. But he was young and ambitious. Jacob was 
glad when the time was up, and he could be (he thought) 
united to the one of his choice. Some one stood up 
beside him, her face hidden with the beautiful-veil, and 
we will suppose that he heard the words : “Will you 
have this woman to be your wedded wife, and live 
together after God’s ordinance of matrimony? Will 
you love her, comfort her, honor her, and keep her in 
sickness and in health ?” He would ; and he could scarcely 
wait for the time to come to say, “Yes.” They came 
up to kiss the bride, the way they do now, or, at least, 
he saw, presently, when the veil was lifted from her 
face, not his beautiful, long-loved Rachel, but her weak- 
eyed sister Leah. 

Maybe you think you can do a mean trick, and cheat 
your brother, and put on your make-up, and go your way. 
God knows how to do with a man who has done wrong. 
If you get out of the will of God, ninty-nine chances 
out of a hundred, you will marry the wrong person. 


Jacob — One: Whom God Love;d 33 

It is no wonder that the divorce mills are full. Nearly 
every one has gotten out of God’s will, nearly every 
one has wronged some one. You may think you are 
long-headed enough and smart enough to beat God Al- 
mighty; but you would better let God plan your life and 
attend to your matrimonial arrangements. If you think 
best to try Jacob’s plan, soon you will be drinking from 
a bitter cup, and saying, “Oh, brother, my wife is so 
unreasonable that 1 cannot keep the victory,” or, “Oh, 
my husband treats me so cruelly, pray for me.” You 
deserve to get a punishment ten times worse than you 
are getting. If you had kept saved, and in the will of 
God, you would never have seen the troubles you are now 
having to meet. 

Jacob became an example of a disappointed man. 
Instead of getting a wife in the way his father got his 
wife, and having everything given to him that his 
father owned, he ran away and got a weak-eyed woman, 
and had an awful time, and did not get out of that coun- 
try for twenty years. 

Jacob was a smooth man. He wore kid gloves, and 
when he embarked in business he entered upon a career 
that was somewhat like the business career of many 
people. The life insurance men who get from three to 
five thousand dollars a year, the girls in the department 
stores who can measure off lace and ribbons, — oh, yes, 
so smooth, they have “kid glove” voices, so delicate and 
smooth. Had they been converted, many of them would 
have been in foreign fields, ere this, winning souls and 


34 Sermons on Bible Characters 

having a good time, instead of measuring off ribbons 
behind some counter. 

Jacob was a successful business man. He could go 
into business with a man, equal partnership, yes, sir, equal, 
and at the end of a few years he would have practically 
all the profits; the other partner might perhaps have a 
few scrawny cows. His career was speckled and spot- 
ted, and if you will look over your history, you will find 
it has the same appearance. 

How about the life insurance company you repre- 
sent? You always say, “It is the strongest in the 
world,” and you know that the president has just 
decamped with ten thousand dollars, and if a certain 
person should die, the company would be broken up. 

You may not be an insurance agent, you may be 
a dry goods lady, yet, if you will look back over your 
past life, you will see black and white scattered all 
along your way. 

Scores and hundreds of people who ought to be 
preaching the gospel are plunged into a crooked busi- 
ness career. Men and women who could preach the 
gospel, and influence souls for Heaven are simply do 
ing good deeds instead of following God and the 
calling that He intended for them. They are cutting 
off the limbs of injured people, binding up bruised 
arms and nursing the sick, — out of the will of God 
entirely, and some of them have spent ten or twenty 
years at it. 

Jacob, had he held to God’s plan for his life, could 
have saved himself many years of hard work, and 


Jacob — One: Whom God Loved 35 

God would probably have brought Rachel out of Padan- 
aram, in a manner similar to the way in which He 
selected a wife for his father Isaac, and Jacob would 
have had victory all along the line. 

Wasted years! Think of souls screaming in Hell 
because you did not get saved sooner, and begin shout- 
ing the praises of God. Think of souls sinking in the 
lake of fire and brimstone, and tearing their hair ; 
souls who might have been saints in glory, had you 
stood true, and trusted God. 

Time rolls on and we find that one of Jacob’s 
wives has stolen some images and has hidden them. 
Laban received word that his idols had been stolen and 
pursuing the departing Jacob and his company accused 
them of the theft. Rachel was the guilty one, but 
declared her innocence by deception. 

Years passed and she clung to those idols and only 
a short time before her death (after the birth of her 
second born), did she yield up her idols and get the 
blessing of God upon her. What a sorrow it must have 
been to Jacob to have his wife whom he so dearly 
loved, saved as by a hair’s breadth. 

There is such a thing as getting saved at the eleventh 
hour; but I do not want to see any one get so close 
a call, and as I preach from time to time to intelli- 
gent people, people who are making good money at 
whatever work they do, I think of what God could 
do with them in His vineyard, if they would get saved 
and sanctified and let God have His way with their 
lives. I covet them for Jesus Christ. 


36 Sermons on Bible Characters 

Suddenly a calamity stared Jacob in the face. He 
heard that not one man, but an army was on his track. 
Esau had vowed to kill Jacob. The devil is on his 
track, too. But Jacob wrestles with the angel and 
prevails. Presently God reminded him of something 
and he said, “Yes, Lord, I will do it.” The Holy 
Ghost I suppose, said, “Restitution,” and Jacob said, 
“Yes,” and was saved from Hell. Restitution did not 
save him, but it put him where God could save him. 
We know that there are those who will not break 
away from their unlawful alliances; who prefer to 
say that the past is all washed away. They may sit 
and sing in this world, but they will weep and wail 
in the next. 

How much will it cost you to make restitution ? 
About ten thousand dollars of our money was the 
sum of the restitution which Jacob had to make. He 
picked out the best blooded stock he had and started 
them off as fast as they could go toward Esau. Esau 
said, “What is this?” 

“This is Jacob’s restitution. Put it on the account 
and credit it.” 

It is hard to make restitution sometimes. It is 
easier to sing, “Jesus paid it all.” He paid what you 
could not pay, but He did not pay that five dollar bill 
that you owe, nor for the bottle of cologne that you 
took from the drug department in the store. The dy- 
ing thief was unable to make restitution, because his 
hands were nailed to the cross. You may be poor, and 
owe a million dollars, and if you cannot get money 


Jacob — One; Whom God Loved 


37 


for restitution, Jesus Christ will not bar you out of 
Heaven on that account; but, refuse to pay back one 
cent that God knows you can pay, and ought to pay, and 
you will lose your soul I know of boys who will make 
restitution and get saved, or they will get a good all- 
wool suit that will last them for five years in some 
penitentiary; and, instead of calling them by the name 
their mother gave them, they will be called, “1904,” 
or some such number. They may not be willing to 
turn their steps toward Jesus, and salvation, but they will 
do it or wear a chain about their feet in some pen- 
itentiary. 

Esau’s plans now have to change. Jacob gives 
him a hug and kiss and Esau says, ‘‘It is all right, 
brother Jacob.” You will find that it will pay you well 
to make restitution in this life. God spared Jacob’s 
life a little longer, thus giving him a chance to get 
sanctified. 

It must have seemed to Jacob that he never could 
get the blessing for whenever he tried to get closer to 
God, the enemy did everything he could to hold him 
back and discourage him, in much the same way that 
he tries to discourage people today, who seek the Holy 
Ghost, but you will do some digging and hunting if 
you are in earnest about getting this wonderful bless- 
ing. Jacob found some earrings and other useless 
adornments, and got them out of the way, and the 
power of the Lord came on him, and the whole country 
around felt that something had made Jacob a different 
man. One might think that the life of Tacob would 

4 


38 Sermons on Bible Characters 

be a happy and prosperous life, from that time forth ; 
but he was destined to be deceived as he had deceived 
his father. The coat of his son Joseph was taken and 
dipped in the blood of a “kid of the goats”; Jacob 
reaped what he had sown when he put the skin of the 
kid upon his hands and neck, and said to his father, 
“I am Esau.” 

Does a man reap what he has sown, even though he 
repents, makes restitution, and gets saved and sanctified ? 
How about it? Here is a boy in school, for instance, 
who keeps whispering and sticking pins into the one 
next to him. He gets through school without learning much 
of anything, and when he reaches the age of eighteen 
or nineteen he cannot add a column of figures, and 
can scarcely write his name. He is of little value in 
store or office, and goes on in sin until he is thirty or 
forty years of age; then he gets converted. The blood 
of Christ will wash away his sins, but that does not 
give him a good education. That does not make of 
him a scholar. The effect of his wasted time will always 
be felt in his life. 

Jacob had known what it was to prevail with God, 
and upon the loss of Joseph he should have trusted God, 
and shouted the victory. He could very easily have 
knelt and said, “My God, thou knowest whether 
or not this is Joseph’s coat, and whether or not this 
is Joseph’s blood,” and God would have comforted him, 
and even if the boy had been dead, God would have 
sustained him in His own miraculous way. But in- 
stead of talking to God, he perhaps folded up the 


Jacob — One Whom God Loved 39 

coat, put it away, and grieved over his loss. Instead 
of keeping a good experience, growing good corn, and 
having a victorious time, he must needs go to some 
other holiness meeting to get dug out. He tells in the 
church about his crooked paths. But Jacob has lost 
the power, lost the victory, lost the fire, and is not 
able to feed people any more. Instead, he should have 
said, “They tell me that my boy is dead, but some- 
thing keeps my heart warm and tells me I will yet 
see him.” Is that the way you do? How do you 
act when the devil comes along and holds up a scare- 
crow in front of you? Do you begin to tell about 
gray hairs, and sorrows, and the grave, and all that? 
In other words, do you backslide and have to be re- 
claimed? Thank God, it is possible to trust Him in 
spite of the devil, and believe Him, and have victory, 
and we can testify that “our light affliction, which is 
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory.” 

From the time that Joseph went away, his father’s 
affections wound around Benjamin, and I suppose he 
would not let him get out of his sight. Probably Jacob 
had a bed in his own room for Benjamin, so that in 
the night, he could steal over occasionally and see if 
the little fellow was all right. 

He was not so much interested in the other boys, 
but he was greatly interested in Benjamin. Maybe 
you have an idol, and know what it is to have some- 
thing between you and God. Oh, how God will bless you 
when you tear that idol down, that little gold ring or 


40 Sermons on Bible Characters 

trinket which you have tucked away. In some coun- 
tries a woman is not considered married unless she 
has her gold ring, but in this country there are hun- 
dreds of people who have no gold ring, and yet they 
are married. Is there something onto which you are 
holding? So long as there is, the old man will stay 
in your heart. You can shout and testify, “I have 
it,” and that is very evident. A spiritual person can 
see that you have it (Benjamin) without the aid of 
a microscope. 

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness.” When you have become hungry 
enough, you will be filled. “Hungry enough? I am so 
hungry,” you say. When you are so hungry that you 
are willing to give up Benjamin you will be filled. 
Jacob made up his mind that whatever happened, 
he would not give up Benjamin. The boys went 
over to the holiness meeting in Joseph’s country and 
came back and told Jacob that the preacher spoke 
roughly, — that they did not think he had the blessing, 
or, they would say in these days, that he had never 
read the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and 
they told Jacob that they did not think there was any 
use at all to ask again for corn because the price was 
too high. Yes, people want corn, but it costs some- 
thing. What does it cost? “There is plenty of corn 
over there, but the governor says we will never get 
another bite, unless we bring Benjamin.” 

Jacob is now old and poor. The fact that he has 
made an idol of Benjamin and has held something back 


Jacob — One: Whom God Love;d 41 

from God, has not increased his riches. The way to 
reap bountifully is to sow bountifully. Joseph, whom 
Jacob thought was dead, was distributing corn in Egypt 
and, as it were, holding holiness meetings. Jacob had 
made up his mind that whatever happened, come what 
might, he would not give up Benjamin. He would 
look at him and say, “No, Benjamin, your father will 
never give you up.” Then he would listen to the re- 
ports of the meeting that the other boys had attended, 
and then he would get so hungry and go around to 
the neighbors, and say, “Do you think I ought to give 
him up?” “Oh, no,” they said, “you hold onto him. 
He is all you have.” How many times have you had 
people tell you to hold onto the things that were 
blighting your spiritual life? Jacob would go to 
church and testify, but the boys would say, “No, Pa. 
you have no salvation at all. Any one can see that 
you have no victory.” 

Why is it that people cling to things that it is best 
for them to surrender ? How foolish people are ! 
They are afraid to give up all lest they starve or go 
crazy, or they fear that God will kill the baby that 
they love so much. “Be not afraid,” is what God 
says. Look at the crowd that will not give up “Ben- 
jamin,” and you will see a crowd whose souls are starv- 
ing. They say, “No, I will not give him up.” “But,” 
the boys said, “Pa, you are starving the whole crowd 
to death. The governor said, ‘No Benjamin; no corn.” 
Why do people fail to get sanctified? They fail to 
bring Benjamin. They hold him back and all the time 


42 Sermons on Bible Characters 

the corn ^becomes lower and lower in the bin. “No, 
I will never give up Benjamin. The Lord gave him 
to me to comfort my old age.” The only alternative 
is starvation. You will find people who have been 
regular attendants of the Methodist and the other 
churches for a score or more of years, and they are 
making idols of their churches. The preachers are 
hungry, but they will not go with God’s people whom 
they choose to call crazy and fanatical. “O, no !” 
Benjamin must not go, but while Jacob was clinging 
to Benjamin, he was becoming thinner and thinner. 
I suppose he could scarcely bear it when the boys 
said, “Pa, you would better give up. We will surely 
die if you do not give up Benjamin. Every one of 
your boys will die unless you surrender all.” 

Jacob answered, “I will never give up Benjamin. 
I will not go to that crazy meeting, and I won’t let 
my boy go.” 

“But,” said one, “you are starving the crowd to 
death.” 

Brother, did you ever talk that way to your pastor? 
Did you ever invite him to the holiness meeting ? 
“Come on, that parsonage and that salary will not do you 
much good any way.” Could you get him to come? They 
can never have any more corn until Benjamin is sur- 
rendered. Each one must be converted and then sanc- 
tified. When Jacob finally gave up Benjamin, he got 
everything back that he had before, and even more 
than he had given. God takes everything from you, 
so He can flood you with divine grace. He will give 


Jacob — One; Whom God Lovsd 43 

you “fathers” and “mothers” and friends who would 
pluck out their right eyes for you. Some one will meet you 
and take you by the hand and say, “God bless you, 
I have never had family prayers for three years with- 
out mentioning your name.” It is blessed to have 
some one talk that way to you. Those who live in 
Heaven hear of your experience, and what happens? 
They have wireless stations in every part of Heaven, 
and the messages come in from some one on the earth, 

“Bless Sister B who gave up all and told us there 

was plenty of corn,” and from all parts of the coun- 
try the petition ascends, and Heaven is kept busy an- 
swering prayers for Sister B . Some one is all 

the time keeping you before God and He cannot for- 
get your interests. He would have no rest if Sister 
B was not blessed. If you would reap bounti- 

fully, sow bountifully. 

After a while Jacob said, “Boys, you would better 
take him,” and he throws his arms around the boy, and 
says, “Benjamin, it is to send you or have no corn, 
and so it is better to give you up than to die.” 

You have read the story, and know what hap- 
pened when they brought back the news, “Joseph is 
yet alive.” 

“Father! Father! Joseph is yet alive,” and I can 
see Jacob as he is lying there, half dead, and he rouses 
up and says, “When were you lying? You said he 
was killed.” 

“Yes, Father, we lied, but he is alive. He is run- 
ning the whole country and feeding every one and we 


44 Sermons on Bible Characters 

do not need to live here any longer among these back- 
sliders. Father, that was not Josephs blood you were 
crying about. We deceived you.” 

Perhaps Jacob said: “I do not believe it,” but we 
read on in the Word and find that when he saw the 
wagons, he believed. He looked out into the yard and 
there were the wagons of Egypt lined up, the wagons 
which Joseph had sent. We do not ask that you take 
our word, we can show you the “wagons,” and when 
you see them, if you are like Jacob, you will believe. 
Here is some poor outcast, Hellward bound, and God 
makes a sanctified evangelist of him and he be- 
gins to turn people from their evil ways. He has the 
fire, and we say, “The God that answereth by fire, 
let him be God.” How long has it been since there 
was a fire at your church altar? 

Jacob does not wait to get ready, but they help 
him into the wagon and start off. “Hold on,” says 
a servant, “where are you going?” 

“I am going to Joseph. Praise the Lord !” 

“Wait for us, we will go by and by.” “No,” says 
Jacob, “I have waited too long now. I am going to 
Joseph.” They journey on and the old man looks steadily 
down the road, shading his eyes, when suddenly, Joseph 
comes in sight. There in the distance is his chariot 
drawn by the finest white horses, coming to meet 
Jacob. Do you believe what God says? Listen, “No 
good thing will he withhold from them that walk up- 
rightly.” Jacob gets his boys. It is a united family. 

“I am Joseph.” No one had to tell Jacob what 


Jacob — One: Whom God Loved 


45 


he had then. He knew. He felt Joseph’s heart 
throbbing against his own; it nearly killed him to give 
up all he had, but look at the reward ! Joseph takes . 
him around and shows him the cornfields, and the 
granaries, and it is a wonderful time for both Joseph 
and Jacob. Beloved, it is a wonderful thing to give 
up all and to get sanctified. 

Joseph said, ‘'You may come on down and dwell 
in the land of Goshen.” God will let His believing 
children dwell in the “land of Canaan,” and He will 
feed them. Our souls shall not starve. “Delight 
thyself in the Lord and verily thou shalt be fed.” Hal- 
lelujah ! Those who find Jesus come out ahead. The 
disciples who took Jesus on their fishing excursions 
made up their minds they would never take a trip 
without Him. He knew where the fish would be 
waiting for the net, and He knew how to still the 
storm. Glory to God! It pays to find Jesus. If you 
are in some place where there is no corn, get out and 
go to some holiness meeting and find Joseph (Jesus). 
Get saved and sanctified, and dwell in the “land of 
Canaan” with Him forever. Hallelujah! 

A full consecration brings the complete blessing. 
Sanctification of spirit, soul and body is wrought by the 
blessed Holy Ghost instantaneously, when God’s con- 
ditions are fully met. The old man, the carnal mind, 
the inward proneness to evil is eradicated and the soul 
left without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Hap- 
py the soul that seeks God until he finds this wondrous 
blessing. Jacob spent weary years striving for what 


46 


Sermons on Bible Characters 


he could have had in the beginning. His life was 
wasted to that extent. However, God says He loved 
him: not, of course, because deceitful or tricky, but 
because, though he had been a great sinner, he con- 
fessed fully, had all his iniquities blotted out and 
his name written in Heaven. He is with Abraham and 
Isaac now, a monument .of God’s mercy and saving 
grace. 


JABEZ 

BORN WITH SORROW 


“And the sons of Helah were, Zereth, and Jezoar, and 
Ethnan. And Coz begat Anub, and Zobebah, and the fam- 
ilies of Aharhel the sons of Harum. And Jabez was more 
honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his 
name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And 
Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that 
thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and 
that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest 
keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God 
granted him that which he requested.” 1 Chron. 4: 7-10. 


SERMON THREE 


JABEZ 


BORN WITH SORROW 



HE mother of Jabez so named him because he 


A brought sorrow. His birth seems to have brought 
disappointment ; perhaps his mother thought there were 
enough children around without him, and so she called 
him Jabez, because she was sorry. If there should 
come a time in your life when the world gets tired of 
you, thank God, you can look to Him and find that 
He is not tired of you. So often it happens in a 
family that the one who is called the runt, the one 
who is always in the way, the awkward one, — he or 
she is the one ‘who goes to the Lord and finds salvation. 
As a man, Jabez was more honorable than his brethren, 
and God granted him that which he requested. 

The stone that was disallowed has become the head 
of the corner. The way of the world is to give honor 
to the famous, the governors and great politicians, but 
it rejects Jesus. When Jesus Christ was on the earth 
the people took Him outside the gate and hung Him 
on the tree: they disallowed Him; but hallelujah, about 
that time He became the head of the corner. He is 
our example and through His death was made possible 


50 Sermons on Bibee Characters 

a salvation that is of Himself; that kind of salvation is 
precious. 

Perhaps little Jabez would try to cipher out his 
sums in the class, but could not get them, and the 
teacher would tell him he was a stupid scholar, and 
would give him a note to take home to his mother 
telling her to prompt him. So poor Jabez would sit 
down and try to get his lessons, and when some one 
would see the tears running down his cheeks and say, 
“What is the matter, Jabez?” the reply would be, “I 
cannot get my arithmetic or nothing.” Jabez was al- 
ways in the way and unwelcome. Possibly when he 
would speak at the table, he would be told to be quiet, 
but all this simply drove him to his knees, and when 
somebody would see him kneeling and say, “What are 
you doing, Jabez?” he would say, “No one here wants 
me to talk, so I will just talk to the Lord,” and 
then suddenly little Jabez gets salvation, and any one 
who went over to the class meeting would hear him 
praising the Lord for salvation. 

Although Jabez did not stand very high in school, 
he had something in his heart that was mellow, and 
that made God love him. We imagine him behind a 
hay stack and we say, “How is it today, Jabez?” 
And the answer comes, “I was just talking to the 
Lord. It is all right. I have victory this morning.” 
God bless you, if the world does not love you, Jesus 
Christ loves you. Praise the Lord ! 

Always some one else in the family besides Jabez 
was chosen to be the head one. I do not know how 


Jabez — Born With Sorrow 51 

it was in your family, but that is the usual way, and 
about that time, the one who is looked down upon 
seeks the Lord and finds that he can get salvation. 
Jabez had such a good blessing in his heart you might 
think it would have been enough for him, but the 

Bible does not work things that way, for in it we 

read, “whosoever hath, to him shall be given, * * * 
but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away 

even that he hath.” To bring our subject down 

to modern phraseology: the first thing you know, 
Jabez is at the altar seeking the second blessing. 
“Oh,” he prays, “I have one blessing and it gives me 
victory. I find it with me on the farm, and at school ; 
it is always with me, but I find a hunger in my heart 
for something more. O, give me the second blessing, 
the second work of grace. I want Thee to enlarge 
my coast, and blast me out ; put the dynamite underneath 
all these shallow things, blow the old man entirely out 
of me, and give me a wider and deeper experience. 
I never want to grieve Thee again as long as I live,” 
and the Bible says Jabez found what he sought, and 
that is true of every one who earnestly seeks God. 

Can you remember when you were saved? What 
a really wonderful time in your life it was! You 
went to church and gave your testimony, the choir 
sang, and the preacher preached, and you wanted him 
to get through, so you could go to somebody and 
tell him about salvation, and get him saved. 

You could not be satisfied with entertainments, 
donkey tail parties and ice cream socials, and you said, 


52 Sermons on Bible Characters 

“O God, I must have something deeper. My Lord, I 
want Thee to blast out of me everything that is like 
the world. I will do what you ask me to do.” I 
have seen people who go to church just as if they 
were playing church. They want to serve on the 
committees, want to help with the suppers, and want 
to take part in the different entertainments. I do not 
call that salvation. - People who are converted want 
something and like something different from that. 1 
have seen little boys take a good piece of wood, and 
work at it until they had a little boat, then take a stick 
and put it in for a mast, then make some sails out of 
a piece of cloth and tie a string to it all and pull it 
along, over the water. You ask them what they are 
doing and they will tell you they are “playing” boat. 
We see people down town in these fine churches, 
having a great time and making a grand display, but 
you do not find that any one gets converted. They hold 
great conventions, but there is nothing particular ac- 
complished by them, and the whole country, you might 
say, is given up to fooling and playing and frolic and 
fun. The people have lots of profession, plenty of 
cloth and calico, but really no genuine work of grace 
that puts them into the old ship of Zion. You could 
not get Jabez to be satisfied with anything of that kind. 

Jabez prayed to God, “Enlarge my coast, and blast 
me out; change my ideas and bless me with something 
that is a blessing indeed,” and God gave him what he 
requested. Well, now, I want to tell you not to ask 
that your coast be enlarged unless you mean to take 


Jabez — Born With Sorrow 53 

the consequences of the enlargement. When Grover 
Cleveland’s little daughter was just a few years old, 
they were blasting out old Hell Gate on the Atlantic 
coast. Men had gone down under the billows of the 
Atlantic, stored dynamite there and when everything 
was in readiness, then this one little girl put her 
finger to a certain button and blew up Hell Gate. That 
is the kind of a blessing this man Jabez was talking 
about. Every once in a while we hear of certain 
senators taking a trip down the Mississippi. They are 
talking of making it a great commercial route from 
Chicago to the Gulf. Jabez, I am sure, had something 
great in mind, and wanted to stop playing with toy 
boats and tin soldiers, as it were. He had gotten 
through those days; be wanted to get on up into ma- 
turity, be handling souls, and shipping people to glory. 
He wanted to get people saved and sanctified and start 
them on missions for Heaven. Jabez, I suppose, had 
something like that in mind. 

The Lord is not satisfied with this cutting out a 
toy ship and hanging up a sail. He wants to put 
the dynamite underneath that; He wants you to get an 
experience where you can undertake the mighty things 
of God and start many people on their way to Heaven. 
That is what Jabez wanted, and the Bible says that 
his request was granted. Praise the Lord! It is en- 
couraging to know that our Heavenly Father will an- 
swer the prayer of one who earnestly seeks His will. 

Well, here is a group of little children playing, 
and you ask them what they are doing and they say, 


54 Sermons on Bible Characters 

“This is Russia, and this is Japan, and they are fight- 
ing/’ 

“Who beat today?” 

“Russia beat today.” 

But Jabez looked up to Heaven and said, “Don’t 
give me any play-battle.” 

Brethren, we have no time for play-battks. It is 
time to think of the gospel of Christ, and of a teeming 
multitude rushing on its way to a fiery, brimstone 
Hell; there is no time to have a little shore line ex- 
perience of religion. 

I see in Jabez and his experience, a slight concep- 
tion of what God has in store for His people. We do 
not say a man who is converted does not have a great 
experience; but we imagine Jabez said to God, “I want 
to get free from the old nature that does not want 

your way.” If a person is really justified in God’s 

sight and has received the washing of regeneration, 
God looks at his talents that can be traded upon and 
looks at things with which He is hungry to bless him 
and He wants to give him a second experience in grace. 

Pharaoh’s daughter looked at the little baby in the 
basket and was asked, “What are you going to name 
him?” She said, “I am going to call him Moses.” 

The name means “drawn out.” Moses did not go to 
make up crocodile meat, nor was he swallowed by 

Egyptian training. He was “drawn out” and set up to 
go by himself, and to set millions of slaves free be- 
cause he was “drawn out.” I see in this company before 
me a few of these “nice,” little people who have deli- 


Jabez — Born With Sorrow 55 

cate, little voices, and I know that God Almighty 
would like to draw some of them out, and raise up 
some persons like Moses who are not afraid to let 
the world hear them talk. That is the only kind of 
men that are ever going to be used of God; some one 
that is “drawn out/’ 

No doubt God loved Jabez because He would see 
him on his knees praying much and if some one were 
to ask him why it was, he would say that he was afraid 
of grieving the Holy Ghost. He knew he was not 
satisfied, and there he was doubled up in the corner 
and praying, “O, God, give it to me so I will never 
grieve Thee. I am so afraid of grieving Thy Spirit. 
It is the people who keep knocking that get something. 
The Bible tells us about the man who needed the bread. 
He knocked and knocked until some one thrust his 
head out of the window, whereupon he asked him to 
lend him three loaves of bread ; and because of his im- 
portunity he obtained them. 

It is that kind of people who get the Spirit. Keep 
on knocking at the door, keep hammering away and the 
first thing you know God will answer you from Heaven. 
I am so glad I did not give up seeking the Holy Ghost 
just about the time a lot of people thought I could 
not get Him. I kept knocking until God looked down 
and gave me that which 1 requested. The Bible declares 
that Jabez “was more honourable than his brethren” 
and prayed that God's hand might be with him. 

In places in which we hold meetings, the first per- 
son that comes to the altar is often the most spiritual 


56 Sermons on Bible Characters 

one in the church. Some of our people were holding 
a little meeting in a certain town, and those who at- 
tended spoke of a certain man and said, “You can 
never get him to the altar/’ but at the very first meeting 
that man came to the altar, not to get sanctified, but 
to get reclaimed. His outward life had been so ex- 
emplary, his neighbors thought he was sanctified. You 
often will find it to be the case that when you get to 
a town and begin to preach, the most spiritual one 
will come to the altar. After we began holding meet- 
ings in Waukesha, Wisconsin, an old colored lady came 
to the meetings, and we were told that she was the 
most spiritual person in town. She sought and obtained 
the blessing she desired and has since gone to Heaven, 
God looked at Jabez and He saw something in him 
that turned aside from the world. Possibly the other 
brothers could handle earthly things all right, but Ja- 
bez wanted God most of all. God looked at Jabez and 
saw that during his spare moments he was on his knees, 
seeking, and God said, “I am going to give him what 
he wants.” I want to tell you that our lives are ob- 
served in Heaven. They are all recorded up there, and 
Heaven knows every individual ; knows how you spend 
your life; knows whether you are prayerful or not. 
and knows all about you. God knows what thoughts 
are running through the mind of every one. The rea- 
son that Jabez could get his prayer through, was be- 
cause when God looked down He saw Jabez’ heart 
nearly breaking because he could not get as near to 
Him as he wanted to be ; and He heard Jabez praying 


Jabez — Born With Sorrow 57 

and desiring Him to get hold of those old roots 
of bitterness in his soul and take them out. And God 
is pleased to hear such prayers. The enlarged coast 
is certainly a type of the blessing that comes when the 
old man is taken out. 

It is a wonderful thing that God loves us. Some- 
times when a man gets so tired that he can not read 
or pray, he can think about the things of God. He 
can think of the different hard corners that He has 
helped him out of, and he can meditate on the deep 
things of God. The meditation of a person who is 
really spiritual will be about the things of Heaven. The 
devil may try to slip in a thousand and one thoughts 
about other things, but a spiritually minded person will 
sing like the old poet, 

“Far from my thoughts, vain world, be gone! 

Let my religious hours alone.” 

and then he will have uninterrupted meditation. 

Jabez said he was not satisfied with his life as it 
was. Perhaps he would meet people right along, but 
he could not talk to them about their souls as he wanted 
to or as he felt he ought to. He read in the history 
of Israel about those who had a much closer walk with 
God than he, and he wanted the Spirit to be upon 
him. We can each do something with our hands, but what 
if we have God’s hand with us? Jabez wanted God’s 
hand to be with him, and the next thing the people saw, 
the hand of power was with him. They would know 
of something for which he was praying, and see a great 
big mountain of opposition in the way, and then see 


58 Sermons on Bible Characters 

it suddenly hurled into the sea. They would say, 
“What is the matter with Jabez?” And the answer 
was, “He has the power of God with him.” That is 
wonderful. Jabez prayed until the Lord granted him that 
which he requested, and His hand was with him. I 
like to see a man who can get his prayers through and 
make a big mountain move. 

The family was sorry when Jabez added one more 
to its number; he added just that much more to the 
grocery bill ; but by the time Jabez was grown, he 
could pray in enough to support the whole family. 
What is it to have the hand of the Lord with you ? It is 
like this : Moses had thousands of people out in the 
wilderness, and he prayed for provisions for them all; 
the hand of God fed the whole multitude. This poor 
little boy that was born, but was not wanted, was worth 
more intrinsically than all of the family together, be- 
cause he had the Hand of power with him. What do 
you say if we keep this Hand of might with us? Can 
you think of any disease that God’s hand cannot heal? 
Before the hand of God, everything will have to move. 
Can you think of anything too difficult for the Almighty 
to help you to do? 

This poor, sorrowful, little boy that was not want- 
ed, prayed until he had the Almighty’s hand with 
him. God is no respecter of persons, and what He 
will do for one person He will do for another. He 
has help for those who go out to preach, and also for 
those who stay “with the stuff.” If you pray as Jabez 
did, God’s hand will be with you, and He will help 


Jabez — Born With Sorrow 59 

you to be true to the souls of your relatives and friends. 
When the mighty God put His hand on the life of 
Jabez he could bear heavy loads because He was 
with him. What God did for Jabez, He will do for 
us today. John Bunyan was in jail for twelve years, 
but after the Lord started his hand to writing, the news 
began to reach the world about the pilgrim that started 
for Heaven ; the news of it went wherever man is known, 
you might say, and it was because the hand of God was 
with John Bunyan. 

At one time when the Pope was having it all his 
own way, there was a humble-minded man, a miner's 
son, named Luther, who could pray to Heaven and 
shake all Rome to its foundations because the mighty 
hand of God was with him. This is the kind of bless- 
ing the Quakers had when they were being put into 
the dark dungeons and left to lie there for weeks at 
a time in the filth and mire which it is impossible to 
describe. They preached with the mighty power of 
God on them, and men would quake and shake under 
the preaching of these people. This is the kind of 
blessing the Salvation Army had years ago, when every- 
where their officers were arrested and put into jail, 
and they had victory all along the line, and thousands 
of people were converted. It was the mighty hand of 
God. The result of the prayer of Jabez was that he 
had a large coast. 

What is a large coast good for? I was near Seattle 
and I said, “This is a pretty good harbor. How 
deep is this water?” Some one said, “Two hundred 


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feet deep.’’ What is that good for? Well. Seattle 
knows they are just two days nearer Japan and other 
eastern countries than San Francisco is. Seattle be- 
lieved that she was destined to be a great city. If you 
were to go to one of those seacoast cities you would 
see people wearing nearly every kind of garment in 
the world, and it would keep some one busy explain- 
ing the strange sights to you. That is because the 
city has a deep water harbor. It is put down on the 
map. 

It is wonderful to have a large coast. In Chicago 
at one time, they told us that if we went to a certain 
street at a certain time and held a meeting, we would 
be killed; that it would be the last meeting we would 
ever hold. A brother and I felt that we ought to keep 
the engagement. We do not believe in running into 
danger, but we do believe in holding meetings, and 
so we told the saints that there was a possibility of 
some one being killed, and asked them all to stay at 
the church and pray, while we went to the street meet- 
ing. We knelt in the street and prayed, and the first 
thing we saw when we opened our eyes was the whole 
church kneeling around us. They thought that if any one 
was going to die, we and they might as well all go 
together. 

Well, Jabez wanted to get such a blessing that every 
little town on the map would not close out his business. 
When people would see stones fly in every direction, 
they would say, “What is the matter with Jabez?” 
Why, he has the hand of God. He is not to be little 


Jabez — Born With Sorrow 6i 

and unheard of any more. He is going to preach 
against lodges and against the devil. He is going to 
send the people out on missions of mercy, and is go- 
ing to send missionaries all over the world; and God 
gave him the desire of his heart. 

There was a certain man praying for healing and 
he had some things to do for the Lord; he did the most 
difficult one when all of a sudden the Lord touched him 
and healed him. He said afterward that he might as 
well have prayed for his other needs at the same time, 
because he received an answer to his one prayer and 
God could have answered them all just as well as He 
could one. 

Brethren, when you are praying, do not forget to 
ask God for many things, for when they come you will 
wish you had asked for more. Peter was in his boat 
near the shore of the lake, after having toiled all night 
and caught nothing, when Jesus stepped up to him 
and said, “Simon, launch out into the deep, and let 
down your nets for a draught.” Peter said, “Why 
Lord, we have toiled all night and caught nothing, but 
at thy word, I will let down the net.” You see they 
probably had their nets all folded and put away, and 
when Jesus told Peter to let his nets down, he said 
they had toiled all night, they had tried it; but he said 
that at Jesus’ word, he would let down just one net. 
One minister said that Peter put down only one net, 
but when he pulled in such a large number of fish he 
no doubt wished that he had put all the nets down. 
Peter said he would let down the net just because Je- 


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sus wished him tq , and the fish filled two ships so full 
that they began to sink. What would have happened 
if they had let down all the nets? Have you ever 
noticed that right in the place where you have been 
fishing and catching nothing, after a time the Lord 
will come down in the meetings, and people will begin 
to get saved? Brethren, let down all the nets, and He 
will fill them. God grant that many people may become 
hungry for an increase of faith that their coast may 
be enlarged and that they will receive the blessings their 
hearts crave. 


NUMBERED 


JOSEPH 

WITH TRANSGRESSORS 


“He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was 
sold for a servant: whose feet they hurt with fetters: fee 
was laid in iron.” Psa. 105: 17, 18. 


SEFMON FOUR 


JOSEPH 

NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS 

T HE Psalmist exhorts us to praise God, give thanks 
to His name, and talk “of all his wondrous works,” 
and God’s dealings with the children of Jacob were mar- 
velous. Some of the most wonderful truths of the 
gospel are strikingly revealed by the Holy Ghost in 
the history of Joseph. 

Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob’s family, and 
would have inherited the birthright; but on account of 
a sin which he committed, it was given to another. There 
was, however, one boy in Jacob’s family who could get 
the blessing, That boy was Joseph, and after a few 
years no one needed to ask whether he had the bless- 
ing. 

In reading the story of Joseph, we find that Ja- 
cob loved Joseph more than his other children. It was 
very natural that Jacob should love this boy, the son 
of his better loved wife (“And the times of this igno- 
rance God winked at ; but now commandeth all men 
every where to repent,” and have but one wife), but 
another reason why Jacob had so much love for Jo- 
seph was, that he was the son of his old age, and, I 
suppose Joseph understood his father more perfectly 


66 Sermons on Bible Characters 

than the others. Possibly he spent his time learning 
and doing the things that pleased Jacob, and Jacob 
loved best the one who knew best how to please him. 
Joseph perhaps could tell by the way his father looked, 
exactly what he wanted. The other children might be 
in the same field or tent, but before they would dis- 
cover that their father wanted anything, Joseph would 
be at his side with the desired article. Oh, the house 
was empty when Joseph was gone. The other sons 
were always running after something that they wanted 
for themselves; but Joseph seemed always to think of 
his father, and of what would make his father com- 
fortable. A boy like Joseph draws out a father’s love. 
Such children are always loved. The lesson is that 
we may stand in the same relation to God, in which 
Joseph stood to his father. 

Turning over into the New Testament we read, 
‘'He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, 
he it is that loveth me: * * * and I will love him, and 
will manifest myself to him.” During the life of 
Joseph, his father’s love to him was manifest. Jacob 
had a way of showing that he loved Joseph more than 
the others, and Joseph and the coat (the token of his 
father’s love) seemed inseparable. Everywhere that 
Joseph went the coat told of his father’s love. If you 
love God, He will see that the fact is made known 
to the world that you love Him and that He loves you, 
and for this love and for your testimony, you will be 
hated. Jesus told His disciples that they would be 
“hated of all men” for His sake. 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 67 

After Joseph began to wear that coat, he had a 
hard time ; but he was comforted by the consciousness 
that his father loved him. When he met his brethren, 
they did not greet him pleasantly, as they used to. 
They did not run to meet him and say, “Praise the Lord! 
Glory to God ! Joseph, I am so glad you have that fine 
coat. Tell me, how can I get a coat like that?” Oh, 
no, they were filled with jealousy and hatred. We 
are told that they so hated him that they could not 
speak peaceably to him. They were so angry and 
under conviction, that they did not wish to have him 
around, so they planned to put him out of the way ; 
but, as you follow the story you will see that God’s 
providential care was overshadowing Joseph all the time, 
and everything was made to work together for his 
good. If you keep the commandments, and do the 
tilings that are pleasing in God’s sight, His blessings 
will cover you as a garment, all the time; when you 
sit down, when you rise up, when you go out, and 
when you come in, but the world will hate you. Je- 
sus said, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated 
me.” It hated Jesus, and it will hate you. Do you 
think you would like to get the kind of a blessing that 
Joseph had? If you get that, you are going to have a 
hard time with ungodly people. 

God gave to Joseph an experience that was un- 
like anything that his brothers had ever received. It 
was in the nature of a very wonderful dream and he 
told it to his brethren. The coat had already made 
some trouble in the family; but this dream served to 


68 Sermons on Bible Characters 

increase the jealousy that was already burning in their 
hearts. You who are Bible students, remember the 
details. He ran and told the family: ‘'Oh, praise the 
Lord,” he said, “I dreamed we were in the field, and 
were binding sheaves, and your sheaves bowed down 
to my sheaf.” It was a testimony that stirred peo- 
ple. It would seem that if anything would stir carnal- 
ity, it would be such a statement. If God were to give 
you a dream, and at the same time cover you all over 
with tokens of His love, would you testify to it? What 
God gives to any one of His children is worth telling 
about. Far better have the hatred of this world and 
the favor of God than enjoy the friendship of the 
world and suffer the wrath of God. The Word says, 
“If any man love the world, the love of the Father is 
not in him,” and “know ye not that the friendship of 
the world is enmity with God?” Any one who gets 
the blessing finds that “this vile world” is no “friend to 
grace, to help us on to God.” 

Joseph stirred the jealousy of his brethren, by tell 
ing what had been done for him by his father. If he 
had hung that coat up, and stopped wearing it, he 
would have got along better? If he had worn an 
old coat, he would have had a better time, an easier 
time, because he would have ceased to stir the jealousy 
and hatred of his brothers. It would have been very 
easy for him to have restored harmony by promising 
to say no more about the blessing he had received. He 
might have said, “Boys, I am sorry you feel as you 
do about my testimony. I will take it all back. I will 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 69 

stop wearing the coat. I will not say another word 
about the sun and moon and stars.” 

If you have ever listened to the testimony of jeal- 
ous “brethren,” you have heard them say, “It is all 
right to get blessed, but do not keep telling about it.” 

Joseph had such a blessing that you would think those 
boys, instead of being so hateful, would say, “Father, that 
coat is elegant. How much does a person have to love 
you to get a coat like that?” and you would think they 
would have entered into some kind of an agreement with 
their father, to try to get one like it; but no, they hated 
Joseph the more. “I love Jesus,” they say, “as well as 
you do, and I had this experience twenty years before 
you were born ;” but Joseph continued wearing the coat, 
and flashing the green, yellow, orange and canary colors 
and telling how their sheaves came and bowed down to 
his sheaf. Some affirm that this coat looked like a map 
of the United States, and this is not hard to believe. 
Perhaps in a kind of geographical prophecy it was some- 
what typical of the United States. The nations of the 
world have and do come to our door to ask for some- 
thing to eat. 

After Joseph got the blessing he went to inquire about 
his brethren. It is always so. A sanctified person wishes 
to see how the brethren are getting along. If the breth- 
ren are not feeding the sheep (people) in good pasture 
you say to them, “Look here ! there is a better pasture 
over yonder.” People say that when a man gets this 
blessing he knows how to mind every one’s business bet- 
ter than his own. 

6 


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“A certain man found him, and, behold, he was 
wandering in the field : and the man asked him, saying. 
What seekest thou ? And he said, I seek my brethren : 
tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks. And 
the man said, They are departed hence ; for I heard them 
say, Let us go to Dothan. And Joseph went after 
his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And when 
they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto 
them, they conspired against him to slay him.” 

If any one gets the Holy Ghost, the neighbors will 
conspire to get the blessing from him ; — or to get him out 
of the house or neighborhood. When his brethren 
looked up and saw Joseph, they said, “Behold, this 
dreamer cometh.” You need not be surprised, when you 
are called crazy, or a dreamer. I once asked a congre- 
gation of people, who were in possession of, or seeking 
this blessing, how many of them had been called crazy 
on account of religion, and nearly every one raised a 
hand. Joseph’s brethren called him a dreamer and 
sought to kill him. They said, “Let us slay him, and cast 
him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath 
devoured him : and we shall see what will become of his 
dreams.” If they had killed him, would they have gotten 
rid of him? No, you cannot get rid of a person who 
keeps the blessing. “Reuben said unto them, Shed no 
blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, 
and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out 
of their hands, to deliver him to his father again. And it 
came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, 
that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many 


Joseph — Numbered With 1 ran sgressors 71 

colours that was on him ; and they took him, and cast 
him into a pit: and the pit was empty, t ae v a.- .0 water 
in it. And they sat down to eat bread: aid cbey lifted 
up their eyes and looked, and, bmold, a com; ly of 
Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels ring 
spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to 
Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit 
is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his L.ood? 
Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let 
not our hand be upon him ; for he is o lr brother and 
our flesh. And his brethren were content.” 

Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver, and 
Jesus was sold for thirty pieces. Joseph, like Jesus, 
was sold by his own people. If you think you would 
like to know how it feels to be sold, get sanctified, 
keep the blessing, keep free in the Holy Ghost, and 
you will find that ministers, and churches, and church 
members, who are not “birthright” possessors, will seek 
to get rid of you in any way they can, and for what- 
ever they can get. It is not silver they seek; but to 
dispense with your testimony. A few pieces of silver 
change hands and Joseph finds himself sold to the 
Ishmaelites. Did he lose the victory, and the power, 
and the fire? No, thank God, he found grace sufficient. 
Hallelujah! It is our privilege to have the victory and 
holy patience, and shout our way through difficulties, 
knowing that God will deliver. It is our privilege 
to rest in hope, knowing that God will vindicate His 
people. The devil has a plan to get religion out of 
the world through suffering ; but God Almighty can 


72 Sermons on Bible Characters 

put such character and fiber into one ; and pour on His 
blessing in such a measure that torture or no torture, 
“sink or swim,” a man will endure temptation, fight 
the battle against sin, and keep the faith ; and though 
he is sold out a dozen times by the enemies of righteous- 
ness in this world, he will be abundantly rewarded in 
the next. 

He went into the pit without his coat, and after re- 
maining for some time he was taken out and sold into 
Egypt in his “shirt-sleeves.” When Joseph arrived in 
Egypt, I suppose the boys on the street would ask 
him where he had left his coat. He told them his broth- 
ers stole his coat, and they said, “That fellow is a 
thief, — watch him.” Sure enough, like his Lord, he is 
among enemies and without reputation. 

We hear from him again, and he is now in the 
house of Potiphar. Everything he did in that house 
was under the blessing of God, and it prospered; but 
his experience was not complete, until he was put into 
fetters, and his feet fastened with irons. He spends 
a few years under awful reproach. The marginal 
reading of your Bible will tell you that his soul came 
into iron, or that the iron entered his soul. After he 
had suffered at the hands of his cruel brothers and 
had been sold by them into Egypt, he was falsely ac- 
cused, cast into prison, and reckoned among the trans- 
gressors, like Jesus of whom he is a type. All over 
Egypt, Joseph was looked upon as an impure young 
man; but God knew he was pure. It takes pluck, it 
takes grace, to go through at such times. He would 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 73 

praise God, and listen to the music of the chains, as 
they clanked around his feet. After you have done the 
will of God, you have need of patience, the Bible says, 
that you may receive the promise. Joseph, perhaps, 
remembered that he might have been walking up and 
down, and in and out of that rich home instead of 
suffering in chains and irons. But he would look 
right up to God and say, “Bless God, I will be true 
to the end even though I die in this dungeon. Hallelu- 
jah !” The fetters that bound him, hurt his feet; but he 
did not break jail. He waited patiently “until the time 
that his word came.” He was “rejoicing in hope; pa- 
tient in tribulation,” while 

‘‘The word of the Lord tried him. 

The king sent and loosed him; 

Even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free. 

He made him lord of his house. 

And ruler of all his substance: 

To bind his princes at his pleasure; 

And teach his senators wisdom.” 

It was then plain to see that Joseph had the bless- 
sing, when every one had to go and come at his 
bidding, sit where he told them to sit, and do what he 
told them. 

You will find by reading your Bible that Joseph’s 
getting into jail dated back to a time when the master 
of the house had gone away on a trip. The master’s 
wife put Joseph to a severe .test; but he was true to 
God, and one day, after repeated refusals on his part, 
she caught hold of his coat, but he fled. Of course, 
she could not keep her reputation without lying about 
Joseph, so away the news sped regarding him. All 


74 Sermons on Bible Characters 

through the land, I suppose, no one was more talked 
about than this boy Joseph. He already had been twice 
sold, and now the devil had set this trap. Every 
one could prove, to the last analysis, that Joseph was 
guilty, that he was vicious, that he ought to be locked 
up. He had already been sold, to get him away from 
those whom he was putting under conviction. Now 
he was in jail and they asked what he had done. Peo- 
ple would crowd around him perhaps and say, “Hello, 
where is your coat?” and when Joseph would answer, 
“Some one tore it from my shoulders,” they no doubt 
would say sneeringly, “O, yes, you are a good fellow ! 
You were all right. Yes.” 

Joseph was more than once minus a coat (reputa- 
tion), but never without character. Thank God, there 
is a difference between reputation and character. Repu- 
tation is one thing and character is quite another. This 
woman could wait until her husband returned, and 
hold up the coat; but she could not “hold up” Joseph. 
God makes us “hold up” proof, hallelujah! 

Perhaps you never before discovered what a danger- 
ous man Joseph was thought to be. They not only put 
him into jail, but they put him into iron fetters, so he 
could not get away. Years passed by and then it was 
discovered that this man whom they had locked up, was 
perfectly virtuous, and would not commit a sin if they 
offered him the whole realm. One thing with which 
all of God’s people have to meet, is reproach. If this 
world was so blind that it could not recognize Jesus 
Christ, but mocked him, spit in His face, nailed Him to 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 75 

the cross, placed Him between two thieves and crucified 
Him, you may expect nothing better for yourself if you 
follow in His steps. This world did not for years 
wake up to the fact that it had nailed the Son of God to 
the cross. Marvel not if they hate you and afflict you 
and put you in irons. Fetters in this world and crowns 
in the next. Thank God, we count it a privilege to 
suffer for Jesus’ sake. 

How about the wicked woman who made that in- 
decent proposition to Joseph? She represents the fallen 
church. Jezebel is another type of the fallen church. 
What is the fallen church called ? “Mystery,” “Mother of 
harlots,” and whenever you find, in the Bible, a de- 
scription of a very wicked woman, you find a type of 
the fallen church; on the other hand, the true church 
is typified by a pure woman. This fallen woman 
said, “There is one condition upon which you may stay 
in my house. You may stay here, only if you are not 
pure. If you will commit just one sin, and do as I say, 
you can keep your coat, and keep your reputation — you 
will be all right and I will not say a word. If you will 
not do as I wish, I will say you are not pure.” Joseph 
had the opportunity of retaining either reputation or 
character. Reputation, some one has said, is what 
people think us to be; character, what God knows that 
we are. 

Joseph ran out in his shirt-sleeves, and said, “Thank 
God !” It is an exact picture of a man who leaves an 
apostate church. It was a hard test to Joseph to have 
his feet in irons — to be falsely accused by that wicked 


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woman; but as he sat in the jail without any coat, he 
said, “Thank God ! anyhow, I wore the coat as long as 
I could, and I have a conscience void of offense.” He 
never took that coat off; the woman tore it off. But 
his experience did not come off with the coat. He had 
enough salvation to stand the tests. Those rattling 
chains and his praises to God must have made peculiar 
music. Occasionally some one would taunt him with, 
“What was it you were doing?” 

“I was serving God and being true to Him and a 
lady lied about me.” 

“You were all right?” they would ask. 

“Yes, sir,” said Joseph, “and I have the blessing.” 
What kind of a blessing did Joseph have? Did he have 
a good name? He had character. Let the wolves howl 
and show their teeth, and let an unfriendly world gain- 
say, but we have the baptism with the Holy Ghost; 
“shirt-sleeves” or none, we can smile and show our teeth 
too, but they are sheep’s teeth, and not the teeth of 
wolves. 

The story of Joseph is full of types. Canaan was at 
this time a type of a dead church, and we can see why 
the people, at last, had to leave Canaan and go down to 
Egypt for corn. When the blessing of God is lifted 
from a church or country, it is because of sin. They 
could not have any more revivals in Canaan, they could 
not grow corn there any more. Corn was getting 
poorer and poorer, and more and more scarce. They 
cannot grow corn in the fallen churches today because 
of their sins and their reputation as a corn country is all 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 77 

gone. It ties up a person when he does not deal right 
with Joseph (Jesus) ; but corn is growing elsewhere. 
The reason so many will not get the baptism with the 
Holy Ghost is, because they will not surrender all. We 
know that the popular, backslidden holiness evangelists, 
who are pleasing the fallen denominations, have an open 
door, and are welcome in the churches; but if you get 
the Holy Ghost you get closed doors, in places where 
others, who have compromised, would be welcome; but 
God says in the book of Revelation, “Behold, I have set 
before thee an open door.” Suddenly every door is 
closed against Joseph, excepting Potiphar’s. Why was 
this? Did Joseph have an open door? Why would God 
allow a boy to be subject to such temptations? To 
show what there was in him ; to show that he was 
thoroughly good, for when Joseph saw he must choose 
between having no open door or going into sin, he said, 
“I will take all outdoors. I will not stay in a house 
that says, ‘You must do thus and so, or I will lie about 
you and slander you.’ I prefer outdoors.” We cannot 
say we are not sanctified just because we do not have 
a chance to get fine salaries, or evangelistic calls. 
We will hold meetings in the streets, before we will 
compromise. The next door that flew open in front 
of Joseph, was the door of the jail, and they said, 
“Walk in.” 

If you ever get real hard up for a place in which 
to preach, go into the open air and preach the red-hot 
truths of the gospel even though it might mean that you 
would soon see before you iron bars, as Joseph did. 


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We. as Christians, want to go to Heaven whether or not 
onr skins turn brown on the sands of Africa, or we 
bnve to pray in an overcoat on Greenland’s icy mountains. 
We purpose to go to Heaven. 

Joseph did not do like Paul and Silas, and sing 
en the doors of the jail. He was not so near to the 
c ming of the Lord as Paul and Silas were. He waited 
many years for the doors to open. When Paul and 
S'las were in jail at Philippi for casting the evil 
sp’rit out of a young girl, they had no way of know- 
ing but that they would have to stay as long as 
Joseph did; they did not know, when they began to 
sing and shout, how often they would have the same 
keeper coming in to make fun of them ; but God was 
working in one case as well as in the other, and the people 
found, ere long, that Joseph’s cell was not like the 
others. His cell was different from that of the man 
who was confined for breaking the leg of a camel, or 
the one who had been down the road with a party of 
thieves and had broken the law. 

Ere long, Joseph was walking around unfettered, 
and passing “bread and coffee.” Every one wanted to 
see him, and I suppose they thought that would give 
them a good chance. Perhaps he walked around with 
the tray and carried the food to the different prisoners 
and praised the Lord, and shouted the victory. At all 
events, whatever he did prospered. If some one ob- 
serves you doing the work that comes to your hand, 
do they see you go with a hop, skip, and a jump, glad 
to do the whole will of God? Do they see the sunshine 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 79 

in your face ? God Almighty seems to like to get people 
into a hard place to see them shine and to give the 
world a chance to see them shine. 

“Ye have need of patience.’’ Joseph did not take 
the easy way. There is a way that looks easy and 
seems to be all right. Perhaps you know where that 
pathway lies. The way to have an easy time, for a 
brief period, is not to get converted ; or, if you are 
conveited, to stop walking with God. That way was 
pointed out to Joseph ; but he was satisfied with God’s 
way, and could have penned the lines that Madam 
Guyon wrote as her experience, many centuries later, 
when she was in prison, 

“Well pleased a prisoner to be, 

Because, my God, it pleaseth Thee.” 

From the days of the early church, and even from the 
time of the fall in Eden, the saints of God have been 
tortured. 

Men backed with governmental authority, have 
poured water down the throats of the Christians by 
the hour, and they have put them upon the rack and 
stretched them bone from bone; but from the stake 
and from the rack, the martyrs, with triumphant shout, 
have gone home to Heaven. There is something about 
the suffering in the jails, there is something about the 
stretching of bones and sinews, that is attractive to 
the child of God, who knows that it will help him into 
Heaven. If a person has the baptism with the Holy 
Ghost, He can polish the walls of the jail until they will 
look as the stones of the old prison looked to Madam 


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Guyon. She said they looked to her like rubies. Hal- 
lelujah! She said: 

*‘011, ’tis good to soar, 

These bolts and bars above, 

To Him whose purpose I adore. 

Whose Providence I love; 

* * * 

My prison walls cannot control 
The flight, the freedom of the soul.” 

The devil oversteps his bounds ofttimes, when he 
puts one of God’s children into jail. 

“He was laid in iron.” If a man is in irons, he 
is pretty apt to be having a severe test. Thank God 
that it is possible under all circumstances to keep 
the victory. Joseph knew how to keep in contact with 
Heaven, and learn God’s secrets. If you never have 
had any experience along this line, you would be per- 
fectly astonished at what God’s index finger can point 
out to you. Perhaps you are in perplexity, and when 
you fall upon your knees and say, “Lord, help!” sud- 
denly your deliverance comes, and the battle is won. 
Thank God, our God knows all about us, and all 
about our surroundings. He knows how much brick 
you will have to make, and He knows whether you 
have a nickel for car fare or not. The thing for us to 
to do, is to keep the victory and the shine. 

Joseph was destitute of worldly possessions a large 
part of the time. God was testing him, and letting 
him go through hard places, so that He could 
trust him with money when he did get it. He did not 
want Joseph to have his pockets full of money, and 
be pouring it out before he had learned how to handle 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 8i 

things. God had to fix him up to take care of the 
the product of several years, and prepare the way for the 
whole country to be fed. He also was preparing a way 
to vindicate a boy who had no reputation, and He 
did it by making a million people hungry. God could 
afford to do that for a man like Joseph. God could 
afford to interfere with the whole history of Egypt 
and Canaan, to get such a man out of jail. As God 
looked down He saw there was no compromising or 
backsliding in Joseph. He saw that when Joseph was 
treated to handcuffs and fetters for years he had the 
victory; and God stood ready to stir the whole coun- 
try or reverse all natural laws if necessary, to prove 
to the world that Joseph was innocent and good, and 
to make him the most popular man of the realm. 

If you think some one thing is too hard, keep 

the victory and pass it on up to God. There was 

no complaint in Joseph, and when they put him into 
jail, he said, “Amen.” God permitted Joseph to go to 
jail, and it was easy for him because it was the will 
of God. At the end of the years of imprisonment, 
it was easy for him to get out of jail, for it was 

the will of God. There was no one on the outside, 

that we know of, in all that time with a petition. 
“Please pardon,” but God had a way, and His word 
came, and Joseph was free at the end of the time. 

There were three men arrested in this country who 
said when they went into jail, that the place would 
not hold them ; they boasted that there had never 
been a jail made that would hold them. At stated 


82 


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times certain of their relations were permitted to visit 
them, and none of the guards noticed anything un- 
usual ; but suddenly they discovered that the men 
were gone. The cell door was closed and locked. 
When you learn how they escaped from the prison, 
you can, in a sense, admire their ingenuity. Some 
lady called and wanted to see her husband, and 
they would not refuse to let a lady see her husband, 
so she went to his cell, and left him some bananas. 

Bananas are harmless things ; but they looked 
in vain for several days for the prisoners. Concealed 
in a banana had been a minute saw, and, as I remember 
it, one prisoner started at the bottom of the cell 
door, where there was a large block of stone, and he 
sawed in such a way that he could pry the stone 
up, and it seems that there was a false ceiling under 
the jail floor. He replaced the stone, after they had 
all slipped out, and they slid along on their hands and 
knees on the false ceiling, and presently they were out. 

There are a few who are willing to stay in close 
quarters, in a tight place, in an uncomfortable situa- 
tion. Those who want an easy way to Heaven al- 
ways find such a way, they never stand the test. They 
have friends in this world. This boy Joseph had pa- 
tience and said, “I am going to await the will of God.” 

A verse in the Bible refers to Joseph and reads thus: 

“Until the time that his word came: the word of the 
Lord tried him.” 

The Lord has a certain plan for each of us, and 
it is much rougher on the voyage to Heaven, at times, 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 83 

than you might choose; but, if you will fit into the 
will of God, it will be the best thing in the world for 
you. Nothing can harm you, if ye be followers of 
that which is good. Think of the martyrs. Think of 
the apostles and prophets, and of what they had to 
endure ; but they endured as seeing Him who is in- 
visible, and their souls were unscathed. Hallelujah! 
I suppose that not one of them who has gone into 
Heaven, would trade places with you for a million 
of worlds. Many of God’s true children could make 
life easier, in some respects, for themselves. They 
could go spinning down town in their automobiles, 
and have the errand boys, and salesmen, and sales- 
ladies out to wait upon them, and they might be wel- 
comed into marble houses, and stone fronts, and be 
entertained at mahogany tables and plan out three good 
meals per day according to their tastes; but Joseph 
let God have His way in his life, and I thank God 
that he did not saw his way out of prison. In the 
providence of God his case received attention. 

One generation looked upon Joseph as a wicked 
adulterer ; but suddenly, and much to the astonishment 
of the people who had slandered and vilified him, he 
is brought out and looked upon as a man to whom 
God would tell His secrets. After Joseph had been 
in the jail a short time it became known that he could 
interpret dreams, as well as dream them. 

One night two prisoners dreamed, and they were 
talking about the wise people who could interpret 
dreams ; but Joseph said he was in the hands of 


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One who knew all about what was going on in their 
brain while they slept, and asked them to tell their 
dreams to him. God Almighty took up the case and 
interpreted the dreams for Joseph. Did Joseph get 
the correct interpretation ? He did. Presently the 
prisoners walked out and found that everything was 
exactly as that “wicked” prisoner had said, and the mat- 
ter ended by one prisoner being restored to favor, and 
the other hanged. Joseph said, “When you get free, 
remember me;” but the request was forgotten. Pres- 
ently the freed man was in prominence, but he failed 
to remember Joseph. People in prosperity are apt to 
forget God and His people. How easy it would be 
to do God’s people favors, and God says those who do 
so for Jesus’ sake will in no wise lose their reward; 
but cups of cold water are sometimes expensive. 

At the time when the Roman Catholics were per- 
secuting the Protestants, and the Protestants were 
hanging like rabbits from limbs of trees, or being toast- 
ed over the fire, or roasting slowly as they hung from 
the gallows, or being basted with hot grease “to do 
them to a turn,” it would often cost a person his life 
to hand out a cup of cold water in the name of Je- 
sus. It costs something, and that is why there is a 
reward accompanying ; for there are but few things 
more enjoyable than to pass a cup of cold water to 
one of God’s saints. Find some humble child of God 
and give to him a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name. 
There is much philanthropic work that is cheap. It 
has not been done for Jesus’ sake and has brought 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 85 

no persecution. It is praiseworthy to feed the poor of 
the world, and the devil does not care how much benev- 
olent work you do, and how many turkeys you stuff 
and give to thieves and drunkards and murderers that 
are confined in the jails, nor how much you feed the 
newsboys on Thanksgiving day, if you will only for- 
get Jesus and His people, and if you will only fail 
to keep the victory. But go to one of God’s humble 
saints who is in the midst of a fiery furnace, and hand 
to that one a “cup of cold water” for Jesus’ sake, and 
you need not be surprised if your name is derided for 
so doing. 

Joseph was forgotten for a time; but God has won- 
derful ways of jogging people’s memories. Pharaoh had 
a dream of seven fat kine and seven lean kine, and 
in the dream we find another type. When you see un- 
converted, backslidden or hypocritical professors of ho- 
liness chewing God’s holy people, do they get fat? They 
wind their tongues around a sanctified child of God, 
and bite off a piece here and there and try to chew 
him in pieces, and when they get through, they are 
leaner than they were before. The one whom Joseph 
asked to remember him, failed to remember, but God 
remembered Joseph, and the time came when the king 
had a dream, the dream of the seven good ears of corn 
and the seven bad ears of corn, and the seven lean 
kine eating the seven fat kine. It is a well es- 
tablished fact, and farmers will tell you that I speak 
the truth when I say that thin cattle cannot get fat 
eating meat. They have to eat corn. Did you ever 


7 


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see a person or a church that had been nearly eaten 
up? Those that are eating the fat crowd are lean 
and sickly. They are so very thin and weak that they 
do not thrive. 

Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before 
Pharaoh and interpreted the dream as God showed it 
to him. Now, does it not seem peculiar to you that 
God would give the interpretation to that “wicked” 
man Joseph? God told Joseph how he was coming 
out. When Joseph was a boy God had talked to him 
in a dream and he was ready for the word when it 
came. 

Joseph told the king, “Look out a man discreet and 
wise, and set him over the land of Egypt,” and Joseph 
was the one who was selected. He had no reputation to 
make them think well of him; but he had God. Paul 

said to Timothy, “Let no man despise thy youth.” It 

must have stirred the old astrologers and magicians 
and gray-headed wise men, to see this young upstart, 
Joseph, in charge of the land; but that did not pre- 
vent him from telling the truth, and gathering corn as 
the sand of the sea; nor hinder the corn from being 

plenteous throughout the land of Egypt. The next 

seven years told the story. Do you suppose that Jo- 
seph’s faith was never tested? Every child of God has 
tests, and it takes grace to stand. The thought must 
have at times suggested itself to him, that if he had 
stayed at home he could have won his brothers, but 
now he had “lost his influence.” And so he had, with 
his ungodly brethren; but at last the word reaches his 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 87 

old home that there is plenty of corn in Egypt. Jacob, 
his father, was sadly backslidden ; but little Benjamin 
would take him out, and as the old gentleman would 
hobble around with his cane they would pick up kernels 
of corn and say, “Well, what do you think of that!” 
Some wagons drive along with great loads of corn, 
and he says, “Where did you get that good corn?” 

“Oh,” they answered, “we got this down in Egypt, 
‘at the holiness meeting/ ” 

Jacob knew more about crooked paths than he 
knew about holiness, but he decided to send some of 
the boys to investigate. How were they received ? 
Joseph spoke roughly to them. What did Joseph say? 
He asked them to confess their sins. “How many 
boys in your family?” said Joseph. 

“Originally twelve.” 

I suppose the brothers told Joseph that there was 
one boy by the name of Benjamin who never left 
his father. It is hard for a sinner to make an honest 
confession; he is willing to tell everything but his sins. 

Joseph told them the boy must leave his father or 
they would never get any more corn. The news was 
carried home to Jacob. “How did the man treat you?” 
“He spake roughly.” People say that every holiness 
preacher speaks roughly. If he finds anything you es- 
pecially like he will tear it in pieces. He will find 
out about that which is dearest to you, and try to de- 
stroy it. He is sure to preach about the sin that you 
committed. Very likely he will begin at the place 
where you sold out Joseph (Jesus). Before you can 


88 Sermons on Bible Characters 

get corn, before you can find Jesus, you will have to 
go back to the place where you made that trade, and 
back to the twenty or thirty pieces of silver. If you 
will do that you will get some corn in your sack. 

Did you ever see any empty sacks come to the meet- 
ing? Oh, yes, they have an experience; to be sure 
they have; but it is empty. They can, by holding on 
to a chair, stand up long enough to say, “ Saved and 
sanctified and sweetly kept,” and then sit down again. 
You can see by the way they go down, that they are 
empty. A full sack stands up and says, “Thank God 
for the corn. I have it today.” It is the birthright 
blessing. Why is it that people all over the country 
get angry and come up and say, “I had it before you 
were born”? Why not take that empty sack over to 
the granary and get some corn? It will cost all that 
you have; but “Joseph” will be glad to give you corn. 

What did Joseph do? He put the money back into 
the sack and told them to surrender all. The brothers 
went home and told Jacob that only upon the condi- 
tion that they would give up Benjamin, could they get 
more corn. The dear old man is nearly broken-heart- 
ed. He sees at last that the only alternative is star- 
vation, and decides to do what he can to please Jo- 
seph. He sends again, and this time the brothers take 
with them balm and honey, spices and myrrh. You 
will notice the difference between the first and the second 
trips. “But when Jacob heard that there was corn in 
Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. And at the sec- 
ond time Joseph was made known to his brethren; 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 89 

and Joseph's kindred was made known unto Pharaoh." 
Why do people fail to get the blessing that they seek? 
They fail to bring Benjamin. “Give up that boy?" 
asked Jacob, “I will never give him up. God gave 
him to me to comfort me in my old age." But he at 
last saw he must give up Benjamin or die, and you 
will give up anything that you are holding back from 
God, or be damned. What did Jacob get for giving 
up Benjamin? More than he had before. 

Did you ever come to the Lord and say, “Must I 
give up this?" Any one who ever got salvation, got 
it by surrendering all. Did you ever surrender all and 
seem to get everything back in the bargain? When you 
went to the Lord, did He send you away empty? 
You might have thought you would have to come home 
■empty, but you can go down where Joseph is and live 
on corn. Who is it over there shouting “Hallelu- 
jah," with his hands in his pockets and his feet up on 
a wheelbarrow? You, too, will shout hallelujah when 
you get the blessing. You can sit beside the King. 

I can tell you the way the ministers are educated at 
the universities. They take the oil and plaster their 
hair down with it, and standing before a long glass 
they practice “delivery"; but what they have to de- 
liver will not do your soul any good. They are most 
of the time swinging empty shovels. If there is any- 
thing in the scoop-shovels they are swinging, beware 
that you do not eat any of it. There is another way 
to deliver com, and it is the way that Joseph learned 
about. A true holiness preacher with something to 


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deliver has little trouble about delivery. The crowd 
goes away and says, “I have been fed,” and they re- 
turn and bring others with them. Glory to God ! 

Did you ever go to a preachers’ meeting, and lis- 
ten to the discussion of how to “reach the masses”? 
If you have good corn you will reach the masses. 
These preachers preach to small congregations of people 
and tell in the meeting, as they sit there with their 
gold-bowed glasses, about how to “reach the mass- 
es.” I feel sorry for the poor old road runners and 
the poor thin cattle up on the hills. If these preach- 
ers would take a good scoop-shovel and shovel out 
some good yellow corn, the cattle would sprain their 
ankles running from all over the pasture to get to 
where the corn lies waiting for them. 

The secret of reaching people is in having some- 
thing that they want, and then, shoveling it out. Those 
poor scrawny cattle : I pity them. They cannot leap. 
Take a yearling calf and feed him good corn for six 
months and he will cavort and leap and jump. What 
is the trouble with people who are willing to jump, 
but do not jump? It is because they are so nearly 
a rackabones that they cannot jump. It would sound 
like a person beating clappers if they were to try; 
but let them get real good corn to eat and they will 
jump. There is nothing that puts the jump into a 
person like a good, square spiritual meal. One can- 
not but feel renewed vitality after having a good spirit- 
ual meal with Joseph (Jesus). 

Joseph was made known to his brethren when 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 91 

they went down the second time. Too many people 
go away from the altar feeling hungry; yet never come 
back. Joseph did not at first tell them that he was 
their brother. He demanded that they first do what 
they could to please him. They came bringing nuts, 
almonds, etc., and twice as much money as they had 
before, and they brought with them their young brother 
Benjamin. You remember the story. A feast was 
ordered and Joseph told them to sit down in the 
order of their ages. He studied their faces and set 
plates for twelve. “Let them do what they can,” he 
said, “and I will make them complete in me.” 

It was a sad story that those brothers had to tell 
Joseph, when the silver cup was found in Benjamin’s 
sack. Their souls were filled with despair as the black 
past came up before them like a dark cloud. They 
fell down before Joseph and plead for mercy. How 
could they return without their youngest brother? The 
shock would be too great for the father. Joseph looked 
at Judah and Judah said, “We are sinners. I told 
my father that Joseph was dead, and we all agreed 
to keep the secret; but we will break up that secret 
society forever. Take me, take me. Oh-h-h, take 
me and let me be your slave,” and what did Joseph 
do? Did he take him? He could refrain himself 
no longer. He put his arms around him and cried, 
“I am Joseph,” and there was feasting in the ban- 
queting halls that day. Do you think there was no 
jumping and shouting when they found Joseph? It 
was noised abroad and the entire country heard about 


9 2 Sermons on Bible Characters 

it. The people all the way down the centuries to 
this day have heard the story. Hallelujah! Every 
one knows how Joseph acknowledged himself to be 
their brother. “Oh/’ said Joseph, “you meant it to 
me for harm; I know it, I know it. Do not say an- 
other word. I know the whole story. You meant it 
to me for harm; but it is all right,” said Joseph, 
“God sent me ahead to preserve life. You do not 
need to curse yourselves. Tell my father I am all 
right. You were wrong to sell me out; but I am safe 
and all right. I am number twelve/’ 

Who is number twelve? It was Joseph, who was 
sold; it was the man who was in prison. When the 
king was looking for a man who could collect corn 
for a seven years’ famine he went into the prison and 
got the one who had worn the shackles. He loosed 
the fetters and brought out the man who had good 
salvation; who preferred having contact with God in 
jail rather than to lose God and have a good repu- 
tation and freedom from jail. Suddenly out comes 
Joseph to be lieutenant-governor of the whole realm. 
It may not be in this world that you will be vindi- 
cated; but if you are taking the lash and scourge of 
society in this world for Jesus’ sake, He will one day 
say, “It is enough,” and loose your fetters and call 
you up higher. He will talk things over with you 
and give you a scepter and golden crown. You may 
be too smart and prudent to give yourself up to be 
mocked and spit upon and vilified and cruelly ma- 
ligned as Jesus and Joseph were; but, brethren, as for 


Joseph — Numbered With Transgressors 93 

me, I want to see Jesus, and if He will keep His 
blood over my soul, I will go in His steps until I 
enter the Heaven where He is reigning. 

There is a lesson in this story of Joseph for each 
of us. If we will do all that we can, Jesus will step 
into the gap and do the rest. Glory to God ! They 
lined up eleven boys and it was all they could do. 
Joseph knew it and he did the rest. He did what they 
could not ; he produced number twelve. He was, if you 
please, number twelve, and without him they could 
not be made perfect. They were made complete in 
him. What did the brethren do? They went back 
and told Jacob, “Joseph is yet alive.” “Oh, no,” 
Jacob answered, “I do not believe it.” They con- 
tinued, “Joseph has been kind enough to get up the 
most comfortable moving wagons, and he has said we 
need not keep house any longer in this backslidden 
community. He told us he had houses all over the 
country. They do not call him king, but he said, 
‘What I have is yours. I will provide scoop-shovels, 
and provide corn, and make corn deliverers of every 
one of you. You may all help preach.’ ” 

Sanctification is a second work of grace. Joseph 
was made known to his brethren when they went 
down the second time. Sanctification is the inherit- 
ance blessing. It is the liberal, majestic, wonderful, 
holy will of God. The converted person who seeks 
with all his heart for the second, distinct work of 
grace will surely enter into this wonderful blessing of 
perfect love. 


94 Sermons on Bible Characters 

The type is beautiful here, where Joseph's breth- 
ren who could make no advancement spiritually un- 
til they made their restitution and made their wrongs 
right, finally through confession obtained justification, 
and forsaking their old life, entered into the rest which 
remaineth. 

We thank God that it is even so today, and that 
notwithstanding the contrary teaching and preaching 
of the multiplied thousands of preachers who do not 
believe in this marvelous second rest — this second 
blessing; the inheritance among them that are sancti- 
fied — people seek God with all their hearts and find this 
rest in spite of the opposition of Satan. 

“We which have believed do enter into rest.” 

Joseph's brothers saw him. They recognized him. 
They knew him. By the confession and forsaking of all 
their sins, the past is forgiven, and conforming to all 
the conditions, they see him face to face. “Blessed 
are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” 

God grant that no one may go on the same {per- 
son he has been for years, but that he will immediately 
kneel, and say, “I will make my restitution. I will re- 
pent. I will get right with God. I will not rest until 
I am sanctified wholly.” 


JONADAB 

THE RECHABITES' LEADER 


“The families of the scribes which dwelt at Jabez; the 
Tirathites, the Shimeathites, and Suchathites. These are 
the Kenites that came of Hemath, the father of the house 
of Rechab.” 1 Chron. 2: 55. 

“And I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites 
pots full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them, Drink 
ye wine. But they said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab 
the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, Ye 
shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever: 
neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant 
vineyard, nor have any: but all your days ye shall dwell 
in tents; that ye may live many days in the land where 
ye be strangers. Thus have we obeyed the voice of Jonadab 
the son of Rechab our father in all that he hath charged 
us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, 
nor our daughters; nor to build houses for us to dwell 
in: neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor seed: but 
w.e have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed, and done ac- 
cording to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.” 
Jer. 35:5-10. 


SERMON FIVE 


JONADAB 

THE RECHABITES’ LEADER 

I N THE book of First Chronicles, we find the gene- 
alogy of the Rechabites. Jonadab, or Jehonadab, was 
the son of Rechab (Jeremiah 35:6; 2 Kings 10:23). 

The meaning of the word “Rechab” is “horseman,” 
and the meaning of the word “Hemath” is “fortress.” 
Hemath was the father of the house of Rechab, and 
the name Hemath is said to be the same as “Hammath,” 
which means “hot springs.” It is not surprising that 
we find this family of Rechab, about which we read 
in Jeremiah 35, springing from the “hot springs.” 

Jeremiah the prophet received word from the Lord, 
commanding him to set plenty of wine before the 
Rechabites, and then invite them to drink. God did not 
wish the Rechabites to disobey Jonadab their father, 
but he wished to have Jeremiah prove them. He pur- 
posed using their obedience as an example to others. 

By their obedience, He would condemn the Jews’ 
disobedience, or reprove any one who should disregard 
the law of Moses. Bowls full of wine were set before 
the Rechabites, cups given them, and they were told to 
help themselves; but they refused to accept the in- 
vitation and said, “We will drink no wine : for Jonadab 


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the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, 
Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons 
for ever: neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, 
nor plant vineyard, nor have any: but all your days 
ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days 
in the land where ye be strangers. Thus have we 
obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our 
father in all that he hath charged us, to drink no 
wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor 
our daughters; nor to build houses for us to dwell 
in: neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor seed: but 
we have dwelt in tents” (Jer. 35:6-10). 

Two hundred and fifty years before the test of 
their obedience was given, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, 
had given this commandment. Their testimony to Jere- 
miah was that they had obeyed, and had done according 
to all that Jonadab had commanded.. That was a good 
record. God made use of it. He certainly would be 
pleased if people would obey Him in that way today. 

There is a certain reproach connected with tent life. 
Sometimes people who live in tents are quite lacking 
in point of neatness. Often they can cook very well, 
and you would enjoy what they might give you to 
eat, if you did not know how it was prepared. A re- 
turned missionary from the Northwest Territory, in 
describing the conditions there, said that the climate 
is so cold that the natives often go unwashed. One 
might think that where the weather is so cold 
that water if thrown out will freeze before it falls to 
the ground, to wash in snow would surely be better 


Jonadab — The Rechabites’ Leader 99 

than to go unwashed ; but try it and you will find that 
your hands will become chapped and bloody. The 
climate is very cold where the missionary who was 
relating this incident had been preaching. As the 
natives did not wash often, they did not need many 
towels; but would use a piece of cloth upon which 
to dry their hands. 

Finally Christmas time came and the natives wanted 
plum pudding. They made it of sugar, and raisins, 
and water, and flour. It was to be steamed, and they 
had to hunt around to find a cloth in which to wrap 
the pudding. At last they found the cloth which had 
been used previously for drying their hands, wrapped 
the pudding in it, and put it in the kettle to cook. Of 
course the missionary must eat what they were kind 
enough to set before him, and praise the Lord, even 
though the hands that prepared the food and the cloth 
in which it was wrapped might have been anything but 
clean. The missionary was asked to preside when that 
Christmas desert was served, and as he did the carving, 
he selected for himself a piece from the center. How- 
ever, the savages like tent life. 

Can you teach Indians to live in houses such as 
white people build for their dwellings? No; they pre- 
fer their tents. They are by nature a roving people. 
The treaties made with them have been broken by 
the white people, and the Indians have been driven 
to the interior of this country, and then on toward 
the lakes. The United States government has tried 
to deal honorably with them, and tribes of Indians 


IOO 


Sermons on Bible Characters 


have been placed on reservations. In Kansas the govern- 
ment showed a disposition to make amends as much 
as possible for the great wrong done to the Indians. 
Comfortable brick houses were built for them 
and by and • by when the army officers returned to 
see how the Indians were getting along, the houses- 
were not empty; but the Indians were living in tents 
and the horses were in the houses; for in the estimation 
of the Indian there is nothing that is quite so desir- 
able as tent life. Some Indians become partly civil- 
ized, but they will not readily abandon that roving 
life which is so characteristic of the race to which 
they belong. It makes little difference, according to 
their idea, where they live, if only near a spring 
or river. It was once my privilege, with a party of 
friends, to visit some Indians, and we held our clothes 
around us closely and backed our way carefully through 
the center of the doorway, and had a creepy feeling 
for a day or two afterward. 

It is not my intention to insinuate that people cannot 
be clean and live in tents, because if we were to say 
that, we would reflect upon some very particular people; 
but for that homeless, houseless, wandering tramp life, 
such as gypsies lead, no one has much respect. It 
was a tent life, however, that the Rechabites led, and 
Jonadab bore the same relation to them that Moses 
did to the children of Israel, and, as he told the Is- 
raelites what they might, and what they might not 
do, so Jonadab told the Rechabites how to conduct 
their lives. These people were told by their father 


Jonadab — The Rechabites’ Leader ioi 

that they must not drink wine nor build houses nor 
sow seed nor plant a vineyard nor own one. It was 
a tribal command. In Scotland they would call such 
a company a clan. The fact was that while reproach 
criticism, ostracism and separation were connected 
with this tent life, the Rechabites, for the sake of their 
God, kept their vow and conscientiously obeyed Him 
for hundreds of years. 

Why were they to drink no wine? Because they 
might, under the influence of wine, do something that 
would grieve God. The Nazarites and Rechabites were 
especially forbidden to drink any kind of wine. Is it 
good for us to drink wine? It is good neither to 
drink wine nor to do anything whereby our brother 
“stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.” The 
drinking of wine was forbidden in the rules that were 
given to the Rechabites, as one of the things that would 
help to keep them separate from other people. Grapes 
are good; but these people could not plant vineyards. 
They could not settle down. If they had planted a 
vineyard they would have had to care for it, and God 
wanted them to be moving on. If the early Chris- 
tians had all settled in one place the gospel with its 
glad message of salvation from sin would never have 
spread as it has, into every country. 

Jonadab was trying to thwart the devil’s plan for 
getting people to settle down. He wished his com- 
pany to do differently from the nations around them. 
He knew that if they were to settle down they would 
be in great danger of going into Baal worship, and he 

8 


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purposed to remove every temptation that he could, so 
that the people would not come into a country and, be- 
coming attached to the place, settle down, backslide, 
begin to worship idols and drift far from God. 
It would seem that God led Jonadab to give those 
rules and lay out such a plan of government for that 
little church or sect. He said, “You must not build 
a house, you must not sow any seed. If you sow 
seed you will have to stay and look after the garden. 
The ownership of property will be a snare to you, and 
you will be saying, 'My house, my garden, my vineyards, 
my wine presses, my rooms, my refinement and my so- 
ciety.’ ” Jonadab put a spike through all of that. 

This company of Rechabites pitched their tents ; and 
I suppose they were not very much respected among 
the Israelites. Do you suppose the Israelites looked 
up to them and began at once to move out of their 
houses to go and live like them? Is living in a tent 
just as comfortable and convenient as living in a house? 
How about wet weather? Down comes a storm and the 
bedding is soaked through. “Praise the Lord!” says 
some backslider, “I am glad I am in my house.” But 
when that person was not so dry he had salvation. 
The Rechabites may have had but little comfort in the 
tents, but they had the fire and power of God on them. 
On one hand was a company of Baal worshipers that 
had known God and His law and His blessings, but 
now was backslidden; and on the other hand was this 
company of Rechabites, this company of Jonadab’s, 
with God’s blessing upon them, and now the Lord’s 


Jonadab — The Rechabites’ Leader 103 

prophet gets cups and fills them with wine and is 
trying to get the whole crowd to drink. Jeremiah was 
God’s prophet, and he was obeying God. He offered 
wine to the Rechabites, but they refused it. 

“What is the reason you will not drink?” said Jere- 
miah to the Rechabites. 

“Jonadab would not allow us to drink wine.” 

“Jonadab is not around here,” Jeremiah might have 
said in answer. 

“Jonadab is not here; but he told us never to drink 
wine and we are going to keep true to the Lord and 
abstain from wine.” 

And so you can see that the Rechabites were true 
to their vow and did not seek a way of their own. 
It is interesting to notice how often God lets people 
have their own way. He says you may go any way 
that you choose to go, and when you get your heart 
set upon having anything, and say, “My God, I must 
have it,” He may, and very likely will, let you have 
it, even though it is something He is not well 
pleased to have you asking for. If you insist that you 
must have it, God may give it to you; but He will 
send leanness to your soul. God calls you to a certain 
line of duty and instead of obeying, you say, “No, 

I am going to stay with mother six months.” He 
may allow you to stay; but He will send leanness to 
your soul. 

Along came the backsliders to see Balaam. He said, 
“Come in,” and then instead of showing them down- 
stairs and outdoors when they asked him to curse Is- 


104 Sermons on Bible Characters 

rael, I suppose he gave them a seat in the front parlor. 
He should have said, when they came to the door, 
“What do you want? Curse Israel? Get out of here,” 
and he should have refused to admit them. He would 
then have kept the blessing of God. When a back- 
slider comes to call upon you, it will be safe to say 
to him, “You are full of sin and you are going to 
Hell,” and if he is coming to ask for prayer, he will 
not object to your form of address. He will say, “O, 
I know I am going to Hell unless you will pray for 
God to have mercy on me.” If a backslider comes to 
get you to curse Israel, or comes to get you to settle 
down, deal ruggedly, and you can keep the victory and 
perhaps be the means of getting him back to God. 

We read of a certain message from God in regard 
to idols. “Those idols,” said God’s angel, “must be 
broken down.” The angel spoke to the least (smallest 
or youngest) one of the family, but he said, “Those 
are my father’s idols. I am the least one.” “That 
ground must be cleared off and every idol destroyed,” 
was the angel’s order. 

“That place belongs to my father, and those are 
not my trees.” Where was it? It was where idol wor- 
ship was going on, and who obeyed? The “least one” 
went and cut down the grove by night. Why did he 
do it by night? So it would be done. He might have 
said, “I am thinking of doing it,” but he did not need 
to sit around and think. God says, “I will make you 
the head,” and when the morning dawned and his father 
came out, there was no grove in which to worship the 


Jonadab — The Rechabites’ Leader 105 

false god. The work had been done. This man made 
up his mind he would do what he knew God wanted 
done, and, for fear some one would stop him, he went 
right at it and said, “I will take the consequences to- 
morrow, whatever they may be/’ He with ten more 
laid his ax to the trees and when the people came up 
in the morning they found the trees were down. That 
is the kind of man Gideon was. 

Jonadab saw that if each one had a house, he would 
want a nice rug and then something to hang in the 
corner and then something to hang in the window, 
and he said, “We will absolutely put a stop to that.” 
The more ambitious ones would be working in 
their gardens and getting the weeds all out, and very 
soon they would have one farm, and then another, 
and another, and have slaves, and get rich, and have 
nicer places than any one else, and Jonadab said, “We 
will not have that way of living among our people.” 
And the result was that the Rechabites kept separate 
and obedient two hundred and fifty years. 

It is very difficult to find a church whose power 
lasts as long as two hundred and fifty years. The power 
of the Salvation Army lasted about twenty years, 
while that of the Volunteers of America did not seem 
to last over night. The Quakers kept salvation about 
forty or fifty years, the Methodists about the same 
and the Free Methodists thirty or forty; but this leader, 
Jonadab, had the causes for backsliding so removed 
that for two hundred and fifty years the Rechabites 
kept the power of God on them so that when the 


106 Sermons on Bible Characters 

prophet Jeremiah himself set wine right in front of 
them, he could not budge one of them from obeying 
God, and God loved them for keeping their vow. “We 
have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed.” Is there any 
promise to any one who obeys his father and mother 
in the Lord? Yes, that is the “first commandment 
with promise.” 

When this company of Rechabites found the cli- 
mate where they were, getting warm, and the wild 
beasts pursuing them, they would pack up and go 
to some other place. “What a lovely place we had 
yesterday!” “Yes,” some Rechabite would answer, 
“but I think we will thrive more in this spot.” God 
wants His people to move at His command. Some day 
you may find yourself in a nice little place, and then 
some one will give you a nice easy rocking chair. Per- 
haps when God wants you to move, you will say, “What 
is this for? My heart is back there. God called me 
to work back there.” What is the move for? It is 
to find out whether or not you are a pilgrim; and 
what God wants of us is to be, in that sense, like 
the Rechabites. Suddenly some one blows the horn, 
and up come the tent pegs, and the canvas begins to 
wave, and down it comes. I do not believe the Rech- 
abites dropped tears on the ground they were leav- 
ing. “Thank the Lord !” they would say, “we have 
had good water here,” and they would fold up the 
tents and pack them on the backs of camels. That 
is the way God wanted them to be. That is the way 
God wants you to be. You are not going to have a 


Jonadab — The Rechabites’ Leader 107 

nice green stretch of territory, and nice gardens, and 
sit and sing, 

“My soul would fain remain 
In such a frame as this 
And sit and sing itself away 
In everlasting bliss.” 

God is not in the frame business, and He will not 
have you sitting in a frame. If you get into a frame, 
He will take you out, or take out the glory from your 
soul. God does not take wall flowers to Heaven. 

I imagine Jonadab would see a person spading 
around and planting a little vineyard and he would say, 
il What is that?” and some one would perhaps explain 
that he felt he must grow a few grapes for his 
family. “I do not care for them myself ; but I grow 
these grapes for my wife. She does not like turnips.” 
What would Jonadab do? He would order the tent 
pegs up. He did not believe in laying up treasure on 
earth, and there is more than one way to lay it up. 
Jonadab seemed to understand the peril, and told them 
in substance, they must not plant vineyards, but lay 
up treasures “in heaven, where neither moth nor rust 
doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through 
nor steal,” and by obeying their leader, the Rechabites 
kept true to God for two hundred and fifty years. 

You will find in this story of the Rechabites, a type 
of what a preacher should be, and you will read in 
Second Kings, tenth chapter, who it was that Jehu, 
who was anointed by the Holy Ghost to destroy the 
Baal worship, selected to aid him in his work. He 
selected Jehonadab, or Jonadab. 


io8 Sermons on Bibi,e Characters 

A very wicked woman typifies the fallen church. 
Jezebel was very wicked and Jehu ordered her slain. 
He saw her frizzled gray hair with the hair dye on 
it, and the painted cheeks. I suppose the wrinkles 
were all filled up, but she did not excite Jehu’s ad- 
miration at all and he said, “Throw her down.” 

One of our evangelists was coming out of church 
one morning and some one began to find fault with 
his sermon, and said, “I do not believe in that crazy 
kind of preaching and fanaticism.” The evangelist 
said, “Why do you dye your whiskers?” and the man 
was angry enough to knock him down. He was go- 
ing to tell his views on religion, and why he could not 
accept the sermon, and all the evangelist had to say 
was, “Why do you dye your whiskers?” and the man 
was then ready to demonstrate the “manly” art of 
self-defense. Old Jezebel put her painted face out of 
the window and said, “Had Zimri peace, who slew his 
master?” and Jehu looked up and said, “Who is on 
my side?” and two or three eunuchs looked out, and 
when Jehu said, “Throw her down,” one took her 
by the feet and another by the shoulder and cast her 
down to the street and she was trodden under foot. 
He was a rugged warrior and people could tell when he 
was coming by the swiftness with which the horses 
were driven, and would say, “The driving is like Jehu’s.” 

Jehu was anointed by the Holy Ghost to destroy 
the descendants of Jezebel and the prophets of Baal. 
Jezebel’s sons were beheaded and Jehu slew Ahab’s 
priests and all that remained of Ahab’s house. Jehu 


JONADAB THE RECHABITES’ LEADER 109 

had God’s power on him, and he no sooner got one 
of God’s foes out of the way, than he met and attacked 
another. 

When Jehu wanted a man who would sit beside 
him in his chariot and not fall out when the horses 
started, whom did he pick out? Jonadab, the son of 
Rechab. You can imagine what he was like. Do you 
think Jonadab would sell Jehu out as soon as he got 
into the fight against the Baal preachers? About the 
time he came to a Baalite parsonage and the preach- 
er said, “If you will not kill me, I will give you this 
house,” do you think Jonadab sold Jehu out for a 
house? No, because that was not his training. If a 
man should give him a house, he would not know what 
to do with it. Jehu needs a man who is foot-loose 
and care-free, so he takes this man from the “hot 
springs,” the hottest man he can find, and they jump 
into the chariot and are off down the road. 

He said, “Is thine .heart right, as my heart is with 
thy heart?” and he said, “It is.” “If it be,” said Je- 
hu, “give me thine hand,” and Jonadab gave him his 
hand and Jehu pulled him up beside him. Thank God, for 
some one who will obey God at any cost and use all 
his powers against backsliders and sinners who are re- 
fusing to worship the only true God. 

I have known of preachers going to a town and find- 
ing out the sin that separated the people from God and 
preaching about everything else but that one sin. At 
one time I preached before a certain body of people 
against tobacco and against this and that sin and they 


no 


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would, in a deep voice, say “Amen,” and I found that 
the only way to stir them, was to preach about the 
second coming of the Lord. That truth upset all their 
peace, but in another town it might take some other 
truth to stir the people. If you go to a town and do 
nothing but thrash old straw you will not get any wheat. 
Fearless preaching will stir Hell, and when this is done 
you will need the grace of God. 

While conducting a meeting in a certain city, it was 
so ordered that some of the workers were left in 
charge for a few days, and upon returning to the city 
and place of meeting, it was found that every one was 
talking about a certain brother (since gone to Heav- 
en), one of our evangelists, and what he had done. 
They said he had insulted some high school girls. The 
high school girls were the idol of the town, and you 
can understand what that meant. They had been quite 
disorderly in the meetings and he had reproved them. 
It was almost impossible to get into the hall for the 
evening meeting, there was such a crowd present. The 
high school was largely represented. The brother had 
spoken very plainly and it raised a storm. The gallery 
was filled with high school students who came with 
bean blowers and horns. The crowd packed the hall 
and reached to the sidewalk. 

We might have gone to the brother and said, “You 
were too rash. You should have spoken more carefully, 
— in a more orderly manner,” but we were not going back 
on the one who had been standing true. The pastor of 
one of the churches in the town said that the brother 


Jonadab — The Rechabites’ Leader 


hi 


had made a great mistake. He said, “That is pretty 
rugged preaching.” 

Many influential people, including the wife of the 
mayor of the town, were sitting in the gallery. As 
the speaker of the evening was introduced, from the 
gallery came the sound of tin horns and blowing of 
beans. I said, “All right, if you do not want to hear the 
preacher speak, I will say to the citizens here that 
this is the brother’s first visit and if this is the way 
you wish your visiting people treated, it is what we 
want.” The effect on the congregation was marked. 
The orderly citizens were completely disgusted with 
the disorder; for if the high school had wanted to make 
an exhibition of its foolishness, it was doing it. The 
wife of the mayor was so disgusted that she arose and 
made a speech, and the authorities ordered that the first 
person making any disturbance be put out. About 
the time that Hell is stirred is not the time to apolo- 
gize and break down. Thank God, He has taught us 
a few things. Let us never compromise or give place 
to the devil for any consideration. 

“Did you mean me?” the angry member says to the 
preacher. 

“Yes, bless God, I meant you.” Stand by the guns 
when your sermon hits some one. 

Right at this point is where many preachers lose 
their power. They try not to hurt people’s feelings; 
but the Holy Ghost makes His speakers say some pretty 
rugged things. Jonadab was not a person who had 
learned the method of compromising. 


1 12 


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Jehu announced a gathering of all the prophets of 
Baal. Why did he do that? Did he want to give them 
a good meeting? “Proclaim a solemn assembly for 
Baal.” Was he trying to give them a fine time, a re- 
vival? He wanted to slay them. All the Baal wor- 
shipers came into the house and Jehu and Jonadab 
said, “Search, and look that there be here with you none 
of the servants of the Lord, but the worshippers of Baal 
only.” And when this was done, Jehu said to the four- 
score men whom he had appointed for this work, “If 
any of the men whom I have brought into your hands 
escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the 
life of him.” Supposing some of those in there are 
your relatives, what are you going to do about it? 
Cut them down? Jehu said, “Go in and slay them,” and 
they smote them with the edge of the sword and 
cast them out and brought forth the images out of 
the house of Baal and burned them, and broke down 
the image of Baal and destroyed the house of Baal. 

The lesson we get out of this is that when Jehu 
needed some one to make a speech and destroy Baal’s 
worshipers, he looked for one who had no treasures 
laid up, and would as soon be in one place as in an- 
other. Are you satisfied to be a pilgrim? We must 
kill Baal’s prophets. The only way in which we can 
have a revival that will last, is to break down the con- 
fidence of the people in that “sweet” sentiment. The 
pastor’s wife puts her arms around the seekers and 
cries a little, and they all become “professors” instead 
of Christians. You will cut off the preacher’s head, 


Jonadab — The Rechabites’ Leader 113 

and his wife’s head, and the head of the president of 
the Ladies’ Aid Society, and smash their idols, if you 
keep true to God. God is in that kind of business, 
and will bless those who fight sin and worldliness. 

In Boston, in the Faneuil Hall meeting, I met an 
evangelist (Mr. Blank) whom I had known for twenty- 
two or twenty-three years, and I said, “Praise the 

Lord,” and he said, “Praise the Lord.” Then he walked 
down the street with me, and I prayed the Lord to 
keep me from compromising and I said, “Brother, if 
I could only feel that you are going to Heaven. You 
heard what I preached about piling up thousands of 
dollars; you are going to Hell.” A certain man 

who looked like an influential business man said, 
“Praise the Lord; what you preach is the kind of 
doctrine we need,” and after he flattered me a little, 
he said, “Now, would you be willing to have Mr. Blank 
say a few words from the platform?” You see that 
would mean to sell out every principle we stand for. 
Mr. Blank would have to undergo a radical change 
before he could get upon our platform. I told the 
brethren that if this man should offer one million 

dollars in gold, to talk one minute on our platform, we 

would not allow it, because we have something bet- 
ter than gold — we have holy principles. 

The Baal prophets might have said to Jonadab, 
“We will give you a fine vineyard, Jonadab, if you 
will spare us,” but his back had been turned on vine- 
yards for possibly thirty years and they were no temp- 
tation. That was the kind of man Jehu picked out to 


1 14 Sermons on Bible Characters 

help him. He did not pick some one outside of the 
house of the Rechabites. He picked out a Rechabite. 
He said, “That is the man whom I want for this work.” 

“Therefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts, the 
God of Israel ; Behold, I will bring upon Judah and upon 
all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have 
pronounced against them: because I have spoken unto 
them, but they have not heard; and I have called unto 
them, but they have not answered. And Jeremiah said 
unto the house of the Rechabites, Thus saith the Lord 
of hosts, the God of Israel; Because ye have obeyed 
the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all 
his precepts, and done according unto all that he hath 
commanded you : therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, 
the God of Israel; Jonadab the son of Rechab shall 
not want a man to stand before me for ever.” 

The Lord sent word through Jeremiah to have wine 
put before the Rechabites; but it did not move them, 
and He said, “Because you would not, drink it, your 
tribe shall not be cut off.” The power of God was 
on that crowd two hundred and fifty years. God had 
a remnant, a separate people. He had a way of call- 
ing a few, out from among a great many, who would 
stand for purity, self-denial and the life of holiness 
and who would be willing to be pilgrims. They pos- 
sessed many desirable qualities, and were somewhat 
similar to the Nazarites. They were a little, separate 
people and God kept them. The way you will get to 
Heaven will be by being one of a little, separate people. 


/ 


4 







MOSES 

DRAWN OUT TO DELIVER 












“And when she could not longer hide him, she took for 
him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and 
with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in 
the flags by the river’s brink. * * * And the daughter 

of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and 
her maidens walked along by the river’s side; and when 
she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to 
fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: 
and, behold, the babe wept. * * * And the child grew, 

and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he 
became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she 
said. Because I drew him out of the water.” Ex. 2: 3-10. 


SERMON SIX 


MOSES 

DRAWN OUT TO DELIVER 

S OME time before Moses was born there came to 
the throne of Egypt a king who was unfriendly 
to the children of Israel. This king spoke to the He- 
brew nurses and told them to kill all the male chil- 
dren at birth ; but these women feared God more than 
they feared the king, and they let the little boy ba- 
bies live. They disobeyed Pharaoh, but they obeyed 
God. God’s children obey the ordinances of the coun- 
try when they do not conflict with His laws, but when 
the laws of God and the ordinances of the country 
conflict, then is the time to obey the Lord rather than 
men. The law said that every infant son of the He- 
brews should be killed and every daughter saved alive; 
but there was one little boy baby that had a blanket of 
prayer so wrapped about him that he was hidden from 
the eyes of his enemies. 

You may go to your room in times of great temp- 
tation and testing, and, not knowing what to do, turn 
the pages of your Bible and find there something that 
will show you how to act under your particular 
circumstances. The Spirit of God will bring to your 
mind some promise of the Bible at that time of 


9 


n8 Sermons on Bible Characters 

special trial and testing, and you will be encouraged, 
supported and sustained. It is blessed while thinking 
upon the promises of God to feel that they are ours 
and that the blood of Jesus cleanses our hearts from 
all sin. But Moses’ mother did not have a Bible in 
which to look for help. There were no Bibles at that 
time. You can imagine what this world would be today 
if it had never had the Bible and other sacred literature. 
That was the condition of the world when Moses was 
born. God might have made books without number 
and dropped them out of Heaven, but they would not 
have been to this world what the Bible has been; for 
it was the plan of God for. Moses to be born and 
grow to manhood and write its first five books. 

One of the first things that we know about Moses 
is that he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter in a little 
wicker ark, when he was but a tiny, crying baby with- 
out a name; so she said, “I will call him Moses, be- 
cause that means ‘drawn out.’ ” We see something 
symbolic in the name “Moses.” A person cannot ac- 
complish much spiritually until he has been “drawn 
out.” It is only the power of God that can draw you 
out from what you are by nature, and make you what 
you should be. The natural man is not able to de- 
liver thousands of souls from bondage. Moses was 
drawn out of the water, and God’s people have been 
“drawn out”; some from the dead churches and some 
from worldliness and open sin. It takes the power of 
God to draw out the good there is in you, or the gifts 
that He can use, and it takes the power of God to 


Moses- — Drawn Out To Deeiver 119 

draw out the roots of bitterness, and those roots of 
bitterness must be drawn out lest they “springing up 
trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” God Al- 
mighty who watched over Moses until he was “drawn 
out” and until he had been used in setting millions 
of slaves free, would like to “draw out” some of you 
and raise up more men like Moses, men who will 
not be afraid to let all Hell hear what they have to 
say and who can speak with the power of God on them, 
no matter how the devil opposes. 

You can go to a holiness meeting and learn how 
to live; but we do not read that there were any holiness 
churches at the time of Moses’ birth. His mother could 
not go to a meeting to get light and spiritual help; 
but she no doubt prayed much, and her prayers reached 
the ear of God. They were heard in Heaven. God 
still has need of holy women; but at this time He was 
preparing a boy to do a work later for which a woman 
would not be so well qualified. As Moses’ mother 
kissed him the first time, she undoubtedly offered a 
prayer to God for him, and said, “O God, mighty as 
this wicked king is, I believe Thou canst save my boy 
and make him a man of God.” This mother had no 
doubt seen baby boys snatched from their mothers’ 
arms and thrown into the river in obedience to the 
king’s law, and she hugged the little form close to her 
breast and prayed for him, and when lie was three 
months old, she felt she could part with him for a 
little time ; so little Moses was hidden in the ark and 
divinely protected. 


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Sermons on Bible Characters 


The Bible tells us of the mother of Moses; but 
we do not know much about his father. The baby 
was hidden until he was too old to hide any longer. 

She kept him as long as she dared. While she was 

baking and washing, she was uneasy lest some one 
should hear him cry; and he was getting strong enough 
to make a great deal of noise and might cry at any 
time, thus exposing his whereabouts. So God showed 
her what to do and she worked hard at the task. By 
twisting rushes she made an ark and daubed it with 
slime and pitch, being careful not to leave any 
cracks and making sure before she launched it upon 
the water that it did not leak. Some one has said 

that she tested it with her tears. Many thousands of 

people were dependent upon that basket’s being well 
made and free from holes, and people who train babies 
and young children in these days ought to take the 
“ark and daub it with pitch.” Suppose that ark had gone 
down. Moses would have drowned and history would 
be different. 

Who knows but that some of you who train babies 
and young children will raise up those who will be 
mightily used of God for the good of the whole coun- 
try? The majority of parents in our day go to the 
theater or the ball room and leave the children to 
all kinds of evil. You would better stay at home and 
govern your children. The most important thing for 
you to do is to take up the baby, look into his eyes, 
pray for him and train him for God. Brethren, the 
Bible makes no mistake when it says, “Train up 


Moses — Drawn Out To Deliver 


121 


a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, 
he will not depart from it.” Moses’ mother was train- 
ing up Israel’s hope. When she cared for him she did 
it as unto the Lord. She “bathed him in tears” and 
told him he would be a great man some day; but at 
that time he did not understand a word of it. 

In the history of Moses we find many faith les- 
sons. It was by faith that Moses was hidden. Pha- 
raoh had said, “That baby is to be drowned in the 
river”; but God said, “That baby will live and write 
the ten commandments and see that people keep them.” 

Moses’ mother did what the Spirit told her to do. 
We hear people say, “I am going to keep what pos- 
sessions I have right here. I am not going to give 
up my all”; but his mother did not do that. She lifted 
the little chap and gave him a hundred kisses, took 
him to the little ark which was resting upon the water, 
put him into it and pushed him out among the flags. 
He was not left quite alone, though, for his sister 
tarried where she could watch. She was to bring the 
report of what should happen, while the mother went 
back to pray God Almighty to take care of the baby 
boy. Another picture somewhat similar to this one is 
that of Elijah praying for rain after having sent the ser- 
vant away to watch for the signs. The mother of Moses 
had prayed her way through everything thus far. She 
had brought up the child to the age of three months, 
having hidden him carefully, but she now said, “I will 
have to hand him to Thee, Lord, and let Thee take care 
of him from now on.” 


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That was an eventful day. Do you not see what was 
in that basket? If you could have seen that little fel- 
low as God Almighty saw him ; if you could have looked 
into that little mind, you would have seen the will of 
God written there. If you could have seen, as God 
saw, that little fist as the baby Moses clenched it and 
cried, you would have seen in it the rod of God 
stretched across the waters of all Egypt, and the water 
changed into blood. 

God was going to use Moses in preference to the 
angels. He had mighty angels that He might have 
used; but He took that little baby boy and wrought 
through him. God is not going to have the angels do 
what He wants you to do. God bless you, there is a 

calling for each one. There are waters to be divided, 

souls to be delivered, bonds to be broken, and no one 
but you can do the work that God Almighty called 
you to do. God looked at Moses’ little arms and said, 
“There is no crocodile that will eat them.” God saw 
a pair of feet that one day would climb up into the 
mountain with Him. He saw a little face that in the 
future would look up into His face and reflect His 
glory. He saw baby fingers that in a few years would 

write His laws and the first five books of the Old 

Testament. God loved us enough to care for the little 
Moses until He had given us the ten commandments 
and the other wonderful and mighty things which 
throbbed in His heart for us. Thank God! 

If Moses’ mother had put the little baby in that 
basket a week earlier, perhaps Moses would have been 


Moses — Drawn Out To Deliver 123 

eaten up by the crocodiles; but she put him in on the 
right afternoon and he was safe. Down came the bath- 
ing party from the royal palace, right from the king’s 
house whence had come the law saying that the babies 
should be killed. Moses’ little sister had the assurance 
that it was all right, and there is no telling how much 
the prayers of a sister will do to help a brother. 
Boys always go through a testing time when they 
are about nine, ten or twelve years of age. I used 
to think that the girls would come up good naturally, 
but that the devil got all the boys. Moses’ sister was 
looking after the baby’s interests, and when she saw 
Pharaoh’s daughter looking at him, she ran up to her 
and said, “Do you want a nurse? I know a nurse that 
I can get for you.” Moses’ sister did not go to sleep 
at her post of duty, and she got the one who, of all 
women, was the best fitted to take care of the little fel- 
low, and that one was his own mother. 

There was double protection about that boy. Yes- 
terday he was ordered killed ; today he is ordered 
saved. Yesterday Egypt’s law said: “Take his life,” 
and now all the power of Egypt is back of him to see 
that he has something to eat, and that the bill is paid. 
All of this took faith on the part of the mother. After 
all, faith is the victory that overcomes the world. Yes- 
terday the mother had to take in washings, and to- 
day all she has to do is to take care of her own lit- 
tle baby and get paid for it ! 

God loved us so much that He took care of that 
little baby all the way along. Think of the crocodiles 


124 Sermons on Bible Characters 

that did not get him, — think of the numbers of them that 
did not get you. You could make a museum of the 
things that have not devoured you. Think of the devils 
that have been after you. Think of the dragon’s teeth 
which have never been set into your muscles. Think of 
the poison that has never been injected into us. Think of 
the devils of Christian Science, infidelity and spiritual- 
ism that have not got us. Here we are with our heads 
on our shoulders and grace in our hearts and able to 
shout the praises of God. Between Moses’ tender muscles 
and the crocodiles that might have put their teeth into 
them, was the will of God, and the will of God is 
the strongest armor in the world. You ought to quit 
coddling your children and training them for yourself. 
Let the Lord have them and you train them for Him, 
and you may, under the blessing of God, train some 
one who will smash a whole empire of evil. 

Now, I wish to call your attention to the fact that 
Moses was reared in godless Egypt. There were god- 
less boys there and he heard their conversations; but 
there was something that kept him from growing up 
to be like those Egyptian boys. Thank God, He can 
help us to live in the world and yet be not of the 
world. While Egyptian teachers were pounding' those 
things into Moses’ head, his mother was probably kneel- 
ing down somewhere and saying, “My God, save that 
boy,” and she wrapped him so securely in the blanket 
of her prayer that he was well protected by the grace 
of God. Some of you may know what it is to have 
godly parents put prayer all around you. 


Moses — Drawn Out To Deliver 


125 


Every one looked upon Moses as the most favored 
boy of all the realm. He was no doubt as full of mis- 
chief as other boys; but the whole realm of Egypt was 
looking at him and interested in him. He probably 
became very popular and was admired everywhere; but 
God was talking to the boy all the time, and the prayers 
of his mother were being answered, and we are thank- 
ing God today that Moses’ mother was able to trust 
Him with her boy. If his mother had given up hope, 
if she had become discouraged or had never amounted 
to anything, what would her boy have been? 

There are mothers who think they have no special 
calling in the world. It may be that the only thing this 
woman did was to pray that boy into salvation so that 
he would be fitted to lead millions of people out of 
bondage to the borders of Canaan and there turn them 
over to a man who could lead them into the promised 
land. When you get to Heaven you will meet the law- 
giver, Moses, and perhaps as soon as you get through 
shaking hands with him, he will introduce his mother. 
If you mothers think you have nothing greater to do 
than to bring up children, do not let them go wrong; 
you may be training some one who will win many 
souls. God did not use angels to do this work; He 
took Moses. There are thousands of things which 
the angels can do that we cannot do, and there are 
a few things which the angels cannot do, but we can; 
such as groaning over lost souls, preaching God’s 
Word and winning people for Jesus Christ. These 
are missions which the angels cannot have. 


126 Sermons on Bibee Characters 

Perhaps before Moses had his training in the wil- 
derness, he intended to hold some meetings and have 
a grand time. The trouble with many evangelists is 
that they are afraid of facing small crowds, of get- 
ting bad eggs, bricks, rocks, etc. They would rather 
be up on the platform standing by the bishops and 
elders, and get one hundred dollars per week. But 
thank God, Moses did not compromise. He took the 
track and many people have been blessed by his faith, 
inspired by his example or helped by him in some way. 
He put his stamp upon the whole human race. 
Every one whom God ever sanctified wholly has some- 
thing of Moses’ spirit in him. If you can pass by 
large salaries and work for nothing, for Jesus’ sake, 
you will have shoes on your feet and fire in your heart, 
and you will have a great time preaching to congre- 
gations that never would have come together if you 
had not drawn them by the fire of God’s love that you 
have in your heart. 

Let us leave Moses for a little while and go down 
to the Hebrews. The Egyptians were grieved because 
of the children of Israel. The devil hates God’s peo- 
ple. “And the Egyptians made the children of Israel 
to serve with rigour” (Ex. 1 : 13). Is not that a picture 
of sin’s bondage? You might call the persons who served, 
sinners, and the person who made them serve might 
be likened to the devil; but in a sense the Israelites 
in Egypt were God’s people. How could they be God’s 
people and be sinners? They were His chosen peo- 
ple. You will find a difference in the classes of unsaved 


Moses — Drawn Out To Deliver 


127 


people. Many have no sympathy for God’s true chil- 
dren, they never give a second thought to sal- 
vation; but there is another class that is reading the 
Bible, and, in the Old Testament sense, they may be 
termed “Israelites that are not free.” God would like 
to set them at liberty that they may go in and out 
and find pasture. 

The more the Israelites were afflicted, “the more 
they multiplied and grew” (Ex. 1:12). Persecution 
does not harm you. A holiness meeting was to be 
held in a certain town in Colorado, and the pastors of 
the churches told their people to stay away from the 
meetings, to have nothing to do with the “fanatics.” 
Such announcements were better for our meetings than 
printer’s ink, and crowds of people thronged into the 
largest hall in town to see what we were preaching. 
If you are persecuted and lied about, the people will 
come out to hear you preach and to see how long 
your horns are. So you need not look blue if the per- 
secution is for righteousness’ sake. 

The more the Israelites were persecuted the more 
they multiplied. The harder the bondage grew, the 
more numerous they became. They cried to God, and 
we read that God had respect to their cry. A little 
boy who would be playing in the yard might see 
his mother take a great load of brick or straw or 
something and carry it off, and he would turn to his 
older brother and say, “What makes Mother carry those 
big loads?” The answer would be that she was a slave. 
Perhaps he was an observing little boy, and he would 


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say, “I know boys whose mothers do not have to carry 
those loads. Isn’t my mother as good as the Egyp- 
tians?” “No,” some one would answer, “she is a 
Slave, and when you are a little older you will have 
to work hard, too.” 

Perhaps the little Hebrew boy would see his father 
come in and, crawling into a corner, lie there groan- 
ing, and the boy would ask, “Why is Father groan- 
ing?” The explanation was that his father had just 
received a whipping from the taskmaster. The lad 
would ask his father, “What did you get that for, Pa?” 
and the father would answer, “I did not get enough 
brick made today.” The blood would flow from the 
father’s wounds and his body be racked with pain, 
unfitting him for the toil of the morrow. Thus the 
little boys heard the story of the dark future that lay 
before them. One little boy would say, “Will I have 
that lash from the taskmaster when I am older?” and 
they had to tell him that he too was a slave, 
and that there were hundreds and thousands of slaves 
in that condition. It was not an enviable future for 
the boy; but God had respect to the cry of the Is- 
raelites. O, those groans and sighs and cries ! O, the 
tears and prayers! God remembered them and every 
prayer and tear was put into a bottle in Heaven and 
they were not forgotten. How God delivered His peo- 
ple is wonderful. 

When Moses became a young man he seemed to 
know that the Lord wanted him to deliver His people 
from Egyptian bondage; but he wanted to do it in his 


Moses — Drawn Out To Deliver 129 

way, by fighting, so God gave him forty years of dis- 
cipline and Moses could do better after that. Before 
his training in the wilderness he saw one day an Is- 
raelite wrestling with an Egyptian, and, as he thought 
of their lineage and that one of them was being worsted 
and he was one of God’s people too, Moses made 
up his mind, let the consequences be what they might 
to himself, he would kill the Egyptian; not in a fit 
of passion, though, for he knew such an act would cost 
him the throne; but he deliberately made up his mind to 
kill that Egyptian and bury him in the sand. He did 
so and lost the throne of Egypt. 

There is a good lesson in the burial of that Egyp- 
tian. After Moses had killed him and buried him in 
the sand, he walked away feeling better; but up stuck 
some toes, and some one saw them and brushed away the 
sand and the dead man was found. God buried Moses 
and no one ever found him. The sins that God buries 
no man can find; but sins not covered by the blood of 
Christ are found out. That is the difference between 
what God buries and what man buries. You know when 
you were small and told a lie, that within a week 
your father said, “Did you tell a lie?” Suddenly, when 
you are least expecting to be found out, some one 
is right on the spot telling you what you did. If there 
is anything that shakes the foundations of infidelity in 
a man’s heart, it is to have his sins discovered. Every 
sin will show up at some time unless God has full charge 
of its burial. What would the Lord have done with 
Moses’ death benefit if He had found one among his 


ijo Sermons on Bibi<e Characters 

garments? The salvation of God is the greatest death 
benefit of which I know. 

Moses’ wrestling with the Egyptian was the most 
expensive wrestling match of which you ever heard. The 
news that that finely dressed young man in the palace 
was not the son of Pharaoh’s daughter flew from lip 
to lip. He was free to tell the Egyptians that he was 
not her son, and from that time the country around 
there was too hot for him, and he went to the burn- 
ing bush and had a talk with God. 

After Moses had been in the wilderness forty years 
he came back to Egypt ready for the work God had 
for him. Notice that the choice he made was a delib- 
erate choice. “By faith Moses, when he was come 
to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s 
daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the 
people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for 
a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater rich- 
es than the treasures in Egypt : for he had respect 
unto the recompence of the reward” (Heb. 11:24-26). 
There came a time in the career of Moses when he 
had to make a very important choice. There comes a 
time when every one has to choose which side he will take. 
If you go a certain way, you will have the sympathy 
and fellowship of your kinsfolk and friends, but if 
you go the other way, in other words, if you do what is 
right, you will be called by an unknown name. 

The reason some of you have an easy time is be- 
cause you never killed an “Egyptian.” Moses was in 
reproach from the time he killed the Egyptian, and 


Moses — Drawn Out To Deliver 13 1 

the reason so many people have no reproach is be- 
cause they have never killed any one. You may not 
understand this kind of preaching. I am not telling 
you to commit murder ; but I do mean that you must take 
a radical stand against everything that God stands 
against. You must hurry and kill the “Egyptian.” 
You can have an easy time if only you will let 
the Free Mason, Odd Fellow, Labor Unionist and other 
“Egyptians” alone. They are fine idols for people to 
worship. But if you have the spirit of Moses you will 
be in reproach as he was and you will be going farther 
into the experience to which God calls you. You can 
be nice and well-behaved and stay where you are and 
have your comforts and friends; but if you persist 
in living at ease after God shows you a way 
more pleasing to Him, you will not be on your way 
to Heaven. After you get the blessing you may be 
called a thief or a murderer and men will cast out 
your name as evil. If you have the Holy Ghost, a 
book might be written upon the things which you are 
accused of having done, but never did. 

You have an easy time because you never went up 
to your mother who is a sinner and said, “You are 
going to Hell for doing that.” God Almighty will do 
wonders for any one who will choose to take His 
side. When you come to accountability you must de- 
cide either for, or against God. We do not mean when 
you are twenty-one years old. You cannot wait until 
that time to decide to follow Jesus; you must decide now 
while God is calling you. 


132 Sermons on Bible Characters 

It was quite a memorable morning when Moses 
looked at Pharaoh’s daughter, his mother for so many 
years, and said, “You are not my mother.” She thought 
everything of him; but Moses said, “You are not my 
mother. You have been deceiving me all the time. 
My mother is a Hebrew. I know the whole truth.” 
Perhaps she told him he could not stay around there 
any more if he was going to talk like that. He was 
at once striptped of his honor and of his place at the 
table, stripped of all the privileges he had been given 
in the mansions of Egypt, and of all prospect of an 
earthly throne and a crown. 

Suppose that Moses, after he had come to years, 
had said, “I will take the easy way.” What if he had 
said, “I will not go where I cannot have plenty of 
money and where I cannot make people obey me”? 
Back in Egypt, if any man had disobeyed him, he could 
have called up an army and made him do as he wished. 
It looked now as if he was standing alone, and every 
one was against him. Everything looked dark; but all 
Heaven was watching him, and if God be for us, who 
can be against us? 

There must come a time when you arrive at ma- 
turity and get through with all your “Egyptian man- 
ners,” when you must look people in the eyes and 
tell them the truth. They explain some easy way to 
you, and you must say, “No, I am not taking that 
way. I choose to suffer affliction with the people of 
God, rather than to commit a sin.” When you talk 
like that your “friends” will not want you around. 


Moses — Drawn Out To Deliver 


133 


Two women are mentioned in the second chapter of 
Exodus, and wherever you find two women mentioned 
in the Bible, look for the Spirit’s lesson. The sancti- 
fied woman is a noble character, a picture of the true 
church, and the giddy, flighty, fancy creatures of mod- 
ern times are typical of the fallen church. It raised 
a storm among his old schoolmates and all his friends 
among the royalty when Moses took sides against Egypt. 
“Is it not here,” they said, “that you learned all you 
know?” Moses replied, “The daughter of Pharaoh is 
not my mother. Over yonder is my mother. I am 
not an Egyptian; I am a Hebrew by birth.” The true 
church was the old lady in humble attire, and she infused 
and nursed the spirit of Israel into Moses and prayed the 
glory right into his soul. The hatred of sin was in- 
stilled in him and he was so full of that hatred that it 
broke out all over him. O that mothers would train 
their children to be such devil-fighters that it will be 
hard for them to wait until they get into the sand in 
the middle of the arena to fight him. Moses could 
scarcely hold his peace when he heard an Egyptian 
casting some slur on the Israelites. 

The Hebrews were not willing to accept Moses’ 
leadership; but God was with him. Moses was in a 
hurry to get out into the work of God. He must have 
been tempted to think that there was no need for him 
to stay around there any longer ; but God had to give 
him a kind of sweat bath before he could go. Perhaps 
Moses thought they would call a meeting of all those 
Israelites and elect him to be leader, call him president, 

10 


134 Sermons on Bible Characters 

and then he would lead them out of bondage; but God 
knew that if he, at that time, had been confronted with 
the responsibility of leadership, he would have lost 
patience and become high-minded and would have 
been killing people right and left. God had to take him 
away off yonder ov-er the hills and teach him some 
lessons that he needed to learn. Moses liked to be 
where there was something going on. The life of a 
shepherd was not the kind of life that might naturally 
have appealed to him. He liked to be at the front; 
but God saw something in him that must be taken out. 

Perhaps Moses felt that training in the desert was 
not exactly what he needed, and maybe you have felt 
at times that certain duties laid upon you in the provi- 
dence of God were not of the kind that would ever 
help you. The wilderness life was a school in which 
God placed Moses after he 1-eft Egypt, and while out 
there leading a shepherd’s life, he learned many les- 
sons of faith and patience and humility. It was go- 
ing to take faith and patience to care for the great 
multitude of people that he was called to deliver. 

During the time when the children of Israel were 
crying to the Lord and the iron bondage was increasing, 
God was preparing Moses, and while hundreds and 
thousands of people were being wronged every day, 
God was preparing one whom He could use to break 
those fetters which had been forged in the smith-shops 
of Hell. 

(continued in the following sermon) 


MOSES 

FAITH TRIUMPHANT 


“By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused 
to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing 
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to 
enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the re- 
proach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: 
for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. 
By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the 
king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.” Heb. 
11 : 24 - 27 . 


SERMON SEVEN 


MOSES 

FAITH TRIUMPHANT 

(continuation of preceding sermon) 

M ANY lessons can be learned from the history of 
Moses. When God spoke to him at the burning 
bush and told him to deliver the children of Israel, he said, 
“Who shall I say sent me?” and God told him to say, 
“I AM hath sent me unto you,” and the Lord told 
Moses that He was the God of Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob. He did not say, “I am the God of the Philistines 
and the God of Cain and the God of the Amalekites 
and the Hittites,” etc. Why did he choose these men 
and say, “I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob”? Because these men obeyed Him and believed 
His promises. Ours is the same privilege as that of 
the prophets of old. We can have as much honey out of 
the rock and as much fine wheat as they if we will 
walk with God by faith. 

If God calls you to undertake a hard or rugged 
work, all Heaven is at your back to help you through. 
Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians 
and was mighty in word and deed ; but it took him forty 
years of living in the desert to learn what he needed to 
know before he was fitted for the work God had for him 


138 Sermons on Bible Characters 

to do. He had seen the old Egyptian magicians use their 
arts and through the years he lived in Egypt, he 
knew about their wicked practices and what to preach 
against when the time came. As he walked in the des- 
ert, he beheld the burning bush, went over to it and God 
talked to him. He saw the bush burning and saw that 
it did not consume and settle into ashes, and he wondered 
what it all meant ; so he turned aside to see. That is the 
way to get God to talk to you. If you step aside into 
some closet of prayer you will find that God will 
talk to you. As Moses drew near, God spoke 
to him and told him to take off his shoes, for he 
was upon holy ground. I suppose the power of God went 
through him and he found he had God’s blessing and 
power enough to do any work He wanted him to do. 

There are so many people who know that God wants 
them to do something hard; but they feel helpless, and 
fear they cannot do it. They would like to get up in meet- 
ing and exhort people to come to Jesus, and yet they fail 
to do it. Thank God, the fire will help you to do what 
God wants you to do. Moses took his life in his hands 
and went before Pharaoh not knowing what the result 
would be. He must have been a great man; for we 
read in the book of Revelation that we are going to 
sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. 

Moses may have thought that when he came from 
the burning bush all of the Israelites would shake 
hands with him and say, “I think you are the great- 
est man that ever lived.” He perhaps thought they would 
understand that he was going to deliver them; but he 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 


139 


had to pass through many tests before they believed 
that he was sent of God. 

Moses was a man who needed to have faith in God. 
He knew that Egyptian bondage was soon to be 
brought to an end, for God had told him about it. 
Moses could not get along without faith any more than 
we can. God does not care how many good works you 
perform, if you do not exercise faith. “Without faith 
it is impossible to please him.” 

Think of the discouragement that might have come 
to Moses when he did not seem to accomplish 
anything the first two or three times he went before 
Pharaoh; but God encouraged him and kept him and 
Moses persevered until he led out the Israelites. When 
the plagues were being visited upon Egypt, Moses did 
not know that the tenth plague would be the last. He 
had no way of knowing but that there would be twenty- 
five plagues. There are very few people who would 
have gone through the testings in the face of so many 
discouragements. He surely must have had faith. 

When the Israelites came up to the Red Sea, the 
whole company waited. The Egyptians with their 
horses and chariots were behind them, and in front 
of them was the Red Sea. The Egyptians were in hot 
pursuit of Moses and his people, and were sure 
they would capture them at the Red Sea and take them 
all back into servitude; but Moses had faith at the Red 
Sea and had courage at the crucial moment to go ahead 
and trust God, and God wrote a page in history the 
like of which has never appeared before or since. Moses 


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took his rod and stretched it over the sea, the waters 
parted and the Israelites walked through dry-shod. Was 
ever another man’s faith so greatly tested? Was there 
ever another such man as Moses? He had enemies 
who would have been glad to tear him limb from limb; 
but Heaven helped him. 

I suppose all Hell was doing what it could to hin- 
der; but the Israelites passed through the Red Sea, 
and the Egyptians followed them confident that they 
could overtake them and capture them and make their 
bondage worse than ever ; but the Lord let the sea 
roll back and it washed over the whole host, drowning 
the Egyptians together with their leader who had dared 
to take up arms of rebellion against God. Think of 
those poor sinners struggling in the waters of the Red 
S«ea. What were the people whom God delivered doing 
at that time? They had scarcely reached the bank be- 
fore Moses struck up a song and they all began to sing 
and thank God for deliverance, and Miriam, the sister 
of Moses, and all the women went out with timbrels, 
dancing and singing praises to God. 

It is dishonoring to God for any one not to get 
his prayers answered. God will bless those who have 
faith and who trust Him in spite of everything. Do 
not go around trying to make people pity you, but 
put your trust in God and be strong. When the Red 
Sea was in front of Moses and the Egyptians be- 
hind him, God told him to go ahead, and it took cour- 
age to march forward. It looked as though he would 
surely be killed at the Red Sea; but he did not run 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 141 

away. He was willing to stand and see the salvation 
of God. He continued to believe and kept his testi- 
mony, even when he saw people who had no grace 

working the same miracles which he worked. Has that 
any lesson for us? Has that any parallel in our day? 
Is it not like the fallen churches and the fallen min- 
istry that oppose God’s people? 

Moses was not without tests. The sign which God 
gave Moses, of the rod’s turning to a serpent, was imi- 
tated by the Egyptian astrologers, and thus his sign 
was apparently worthless. That was a great test. Think 
of Noah preaching for years and gaining only seven 

converts. He must have had faith in God, and so had 

Moses. 

Moses must have had great patience. He loved the 
people. On one occasion he fasted forty days and forty 
nights, and upon returning from those days and nights 
of fasting he found the people backslidden and wor- 
shiping a golden calf. Think how it grieved him thus 
to find the people for whom he had been fasting and 
praying. He no doubt had a great battle with Satan. 
He might have been tempted to wonder what was the 
use of trying to lead such people. He must have had 
unfailing patience to fight the temptations to discour- 
agement which came to him. 

The devil will say to you when you are out preach- 
ing, “What is the use? you get the people up and they 
stay saved for two or three months and then down they 
go.” Brother, you need to have faith in God and go 
ahead and exercise patience for a long time. The ten 


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plagues covered quite a stretch of time, and it took faith 
in God to persevere. Moses was a man of wonderful 
faith and perseverance. When God made plain to 
Moses that he should go before Pharaoh, he went, “not 
fearing the wrath of the king” (Heb. 11:27), and think- 
ing he would get the children of Israel out of bond- 
age immediately. I suppose Moses thought that each 
plague that came would be the last one; but he did 
not become discouraged. We ought not to lay down 
our oars and let some one else do what God wants us 
to do. We ought to preach faith instead of pitying peo- 
ple. Be like the man at the gate Beautiful: get up 
and stand upon your feet and praise God instead of 
asking for some alms. 

“Oh, but see my tests !” some one says. “Did ever 
any one have such a hard time as I?” Suppose you 
had Moses’ responsibility for about forty days, pray- 
ing in breakfast for all those Israelites. It was not 
done except by faith. Talk about praying for things — 
think of Moses! You can barely pray one person 
well, and think of Moses with hundreds of people cry- 
ing and dying in the wilderness. What did Moses do? 
At God’s command he took a piece of brass, twisted 
it into the form of a serpent and putting it on a pole 
told the poisoned and dying people to look at that snake, 
and the power of God healed them. Soon there were 
thousands of healed people running and jumping around 
and having victory. That must have been a wonderful 
scene. Moses did not send the bitten ones back to 
Egypt to get help (?) from the Egyptian doctors and 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 143 

be turned into mummies. He told them to look and be 
healed. If that man had lost the help of God, what 
would have become of all those people? Moses had to 
have faith. He had faith in God and could pray in 
more water than the people could drink. He had faith 
for a whole river to come down their way. 

Moses was a man who might have had a fine time in 
Egypt if he had not chosen to suffer with God’s peo- 
ple; but he left the kingly mansion and went out into 
the world without anything to do but to tend sheep. Think 
of the good time you might have had attending col- 
leges, taking post-graduate courses and having let- 
ters added to your name. Think of all the places there 
are today where people are being fitted to be present- 
able before audiences. Moses turned his back upon the 
throne of Egypt, turned his back upon fame and be- 
came a humble shepherd. The training he received was 
what he needed and was what he could not get in any 
way except by obeying God and refusing to be called 
the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. It takes something out- 
side of book-learning and sheepskins to get you ready 
for Heaven and ready to persuade other people to set 
out on their journey Heavenward. Look at the geome- 
tries and trigonometries which are studied, and yet how 
few preachers there are who can get souls saved at 
an altar. There are high school graduates all over the 
country; but how few persons there are who can double 
over under the power of the Holy Ghost, and, bearing a 
burden in the Spirit, get people converted to God and 
started on their way to Heaven. 


144 


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With whom did the Israelites find fault when they 
were confronted with difficulties? When they were out 
of water, they would say to Moses, “What do you 
mean, Moses, by bringing us out here to die?” or if 
they wanted to have the bill of fare changed, they 
complained to Moses and seemed to think he was to 
blame for everything. 

If looks could have killed a man, Moses would have 
been slain by them. The Israelites would look at him 
and ask him why he had brought them out of Egypt 
to die in the wilderness. They had a steady bill of fare. 
Manna, a food like wafers made with honey, was served 
day after day, two or three times a day. Do you think 
they ever complained? If they had hurried on into Ca- 
naan, they would have found quite a variety of food; 
but the Canaan diet belongs exclusively to the land of 
Canaan and to the Canaan life. 

God showed Moses where to get some water for the 
company, and the men, women, children and cattle 
rushed forward to get it, and then perhaps the people 
began to say what a great man Moses was and what 
power Moses had, and you would have thought, to 
hear them talk, that Moses was a god. Moses had 
great love for the Israelites. When they sinned he 
prayed for them until he prevailed with God. 

We read in the book of Numbers that Moses was 
very meek. You may have an idea from such a state- 
ment that he lacked resolution of character, that 
instead of being zealous and active, he was slow and 
sluggish, that he would lie in the sunshine and sleep, 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 


145 


that if flies lit upon him, all right, he would not brush 
them off; but Moses was not that way. Meekness is 
not laziness. We cannot ask some people to preach, 
because we know they would put people to sleep; but 
when Moses came up with his rod, he did not look 
sleepy and he did not put people to sleep. What Mo- 
ses gave the Egyptians as “presents” were not pleasant, 
but they kept them awake. If an Israelite was off by a 
stump of a tree praying for Moses, his prayers were 
answered. God would like to make of you a person 
whom people would know about because of your holy 
life. People knew when Moses was in the community. 
Moses was like Jesus. The Scriptures say that God told 
Moses He would raise up a Prophet like unto himself 
(Deut. 18: 18), and that Prophet was none other than 
Jesus Christ. 

As you study the life of Moses you discover the fruits 
of meekness, humility and love. He always went to 
God for help instead of taking his difficulties to man. 
He was ready to give his life for the life of the people, 
and even asked that his name might be blotted out of 
the Book of Life if they could not be saved from fall- 
ing into the hands of an angry God. 

Moses was a humble man and showed his humility 
by his willingness to go through with a humble crowd. 
He had not made bricks all his life; but he had suf- 
fered some of the things which they suffered when they 
set out on their journey, and all the way through he 
ate the same food and went through the same tests 
and never once turned back. When grace was needed 


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to break up idols, he had plenty of grace from God to 
do what would please the Lord most. 

The Lord is pleased when people who are justi- 
fied go on and get sanctified. The idea of probation 
in the old Methodist church (which was raised up by God 
to preach holiness) was to let people remain on trial 
until they got sanctified and fitted to come into full 
membership. The life in the wilderness does not seem 
to be even justification, because it is a marching 
around and around in a circle. The justified life 
is a bee line for sanctification. I cannot conceive of 
God being pleased with a person’s taking forty years 
to get the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire. The 
promise of the Father was given and the veil rent 
at the crucifixion of the Savior, and people of today 
ought to go right on after they are converted and get 
sanctified. The wilderness experience seems to be the 
experience of those who perish through unbelief. 

Moses, above all the characters in the Bible, stood 
for the giving of the law. The law came by Moses, 
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Moses was 
not permitted to lead the people into Canaan; neither 
will the law take you into sanctification. Joshua, 
Moses’ successor, led the people of God into the land 
of blessing, and is a type of Jesus. It will take the 
Lord Jesus to lead you into sanctification. You can 
be strict on not riding on the car on Sunday and eat- 
ing frogs or eels, and yet die and be damned ; and 
you could do these things under certain circumstances 
and be converted and sanctified and go to Heaven. 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 147 

Most of you have been through your first reader 
and can spell cat and dog and rat backward and for- 
ward and up and down and any way; but I could not 
get one of you to read in that book now : you are 
through with it. You have set aside the picture book 
and the kindergarten and the schoolmaster. The law 
is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; but after we 
are converted we forget the old schoolmaster and turn 
around and wave him off. You thank God you met 
him; but you have come to Jesus now. I am glad that 
when I was a little child I was taught to do certain 
things in the Sunday school; but I am so thankful now 
that I have the Holy Ghost and am standing fast in 
the liberty He gives. One thing you must fight is 
Satan’s bondage. Remember not the bondage of the 
law, but stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ 
has made you free. Praise His Name! 

Even while in Egypt, and all along as the tests 
came up to Moses, it seems to me that he said “yes” to 
God in all of them, from the time he was a young 
boy up to middle life. You may have renounced great 
reputations and still be on your way to Hell; but if 
a man says “yes” to all of God’s will he is going to 
have a joyous experience. If he says “no” he will 
not amount to anything in God’s sight, and will at the 
last lose his soul in Hell. 

Moses took sides with the people of God. He was 
a man who tomorrow might have been one of the great 
Pharaohs and ruled that great country, but one “yes” 
to God ended all earthly prospect of promotion, and he 


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became a humble shepherd without anything in his 
pocketbook. He turned his back upon wealth and upon 
bank accounts, laid up his treasures in Heaven and 
set his face toward the desert. For years he had noth- 
ing to do except to tend some one’s sheep. 

In order to get an idea of how his position as leader 
of the Israelites must have tested his faith, you 
must needs have seen him at the head of that column 
of three million people who seemed angry enough at 
times to tear him into shreds. But when difficulties 
arose, instead of grumbling, he took them to God. 
When great tests come to us, let us make them step- 
ping stones to a higher place in the Christian life. O, 
if you could see the column of people you are going to 
lead out of bondage into salvation if you obey God, it 
would encourage you to say “yes” to Him every time 
He asks anything of you. 

One secret of Moses’ great success lay in the fact 
that he kept talking with God. God appeared to him and 
talked with him in an audible voice. There were millions 
of people on the earth at that time; but to this one man 
God talked, and He talked once through a burning bush. 
People think that because they belong to some church 
they are going to Heaven, but God is not in that; God 
is not in every bush. 

You can learn something about how God felt toward 
Moses by the way He talked with him. Nearly every 
one is too busy to talk with God. Some housekeepers 
can keep the carpets from getting dusty and cook the 
food to a turn; but if they are experts at those things 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 


149 


they are liable to be worthless at many other things. 
The kind of housekeepers who please God are those 
who often turn aside and talk with Him. Such a per- 
son will have an interesting experience. When God 
saw that this man Moses was not too busy to talk 
with Him, when He saw that he was not always 
saying, “Look at what I have given up,” He desired to 
talk with him. I truly do not believe you ever heard any 
one who knows what it is to talk with God, mourn 
over what he has given up. 

If Moses had been given grammar books and Egyp- 
tian geologies that would have reached up to Heaven 
he would have turned aside from them to have a talk 
with God. What did God say to him? “Here, you 
young Egyptian, stop and let Me speak to you”? No, 
God called him “Moses.” That was the name an Egyp- 
tian gave to him; but it was recorded in Heaven, and 
when God spoke to him He called him Moses. 
Do you think your name is spoken on the streets 
of Heaven? There are angels detailed right on your 
case to see that you get through life all right, and if 
you come to particular peril the angels are right there 
to help you out. People can get so busy writing ser- 
mons and holding revivals that they lose God out of 
their lives. For Jesus’ sake, let us not forget Him. 
He called Moses to come where He was and it was 
holy ground, and there was fire around there. 

If you come to a place where God is, take heed lest 
you get burned. God says, “Touch not mine anointed.” 
It is good protection to have the Lord. You can 


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mock and disbelieve and persecute God’s people and 
think that God is not looking on; but He always has 
a little rift in the clouds through which He can look 
and watch His people, and wrapped around the am- 
bassadors of God is Heaven’s divine protection. 

Not long ago one of our American men was in 
Spain and was having some trouble. He was arrested 
and tried by the court-martial of that country and was 
sentenced to be shot by the soldiers; but he was an 
American citizen, and happened to be able to get a 
message to the consul of this country. A trial was 
asked for and had it been granted, his case would have 
been deferred until witnesses could be brought; but the 
Spanish wanted to kill him and get him out of the 
way. Do you know what was done? His friends 
wrapped around him the American flag of red, white 
and blue, and it covered the condemned prisoner. 
The consul said, “Now shoot him, if you dare,” and 
with that flag around him, no shots were fired by 
Spain at that time. They knew that the minute one 
bullet pierced the flag the news would spread and 
the United States gunboats would be ordered into those 
waters to throw shot and shell into their country 
for miles around, to take off the roofs of the houses 
and possibly kill the king. 

When a man has the protection of the United States 
government he has a protection at which the world 
does not scoff, and the ambassadors of God Almighty 
have wrapped about them the protection of the Holy 
Ghost. The Lord gives His angels charge over them 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 151 

and the beautiful, invisible flag of Heaven wraps them 
securely about. 

If you touch God’s anointed or harm His prophets 
you will regret it forever. The saints of God have 
been martyred in years past. Jesus Christ was nailed 
to the cross, and God Almighty drew a curtain over 
the scene and would not let His enemies have the sun- 
light upon that deed. Suddenly the earth quaked, the 
tombs began to open and men were frightened. Then 
there was a little time of quiet. The Jewish people 
did not think it meant much to say, “His blood be on 
us, and on our children,” but a little time rolled on and 
God Almighty got armies together, and within forty 
years the battle was on and judgments fell thick and 
fast. The Roman soldiers crucified Jews ip Jerusalem 
until they could not get lumber on which to nail them, 
and thus they did until a half million people, accord- 
ing to Josephus, were killed in that frightful carnage. 

The Jews killed only one Man, but hundreds and 
thousands of Jews suffered for it, arid are suffering 
to this day. You cannot harm a man of God without 
regretting it forever. You would better put your hand 
into the mouth of a lion than to interfere with God’s 
ambassadors. A man who has His protection has all 
the protection he needs. If you have God on your side 
you will have a good time though you are persecuted; 
but woe to the man who takes the other side. 

Herod took off John the Baptist’s head; but after 
that he saw him in the day and saw him in the night. 
Some one would come down the road and Herod would 


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say, “Isn’t that John?” Jesus came working miracles 
and Herod said He was John. “Here he is !” Herod 
would say, and start back affrighted. If you have the 
Holy Ghost it will make no difference whom you meet; 
you will be glad to see John or Jesus or any one whom 
God Almighty sends to meet you. 

Stephen’s persecutors threw enough rocks at him 
to put him into Heaven ; but when Jesus arose from 
His seat in Heaven to meet him and welcome him, I 
think Stephen did not fed like going back to earth 
again, and when Paul was caught up into Heaven and 
saw things that were not lawful to utter, — after they 
had nearly stoned the life out of him, — he was no doubt 
glad it happened exactly as it did. 

What was the burden of the Lord’s message to Mo- 
ses at the hurning bush? He said He had seen the Is- 
raelites’ moaning and groaning and crying and bondage, 
and He said, “I have surely seen the affliction of 
my people; * * * for I know their sorrows.” Jesus 
knows all about our struggles. It is not hard for 
God to answer our prayers. God will help us and 
take care of us if we will keep in divine order. Would 
it not be fine at the time when a person needs comfort, 
to have the Lord stand by him and say, “I know all 
your sorrows”? It would be comforting to have God 
say that. It is blessed to know that when we get into 
trouble God will help us. There are times when 
it takes the Lord to set things right. He sees tem- 
pestuous times on every hand, and then comes to our 
rescue. He says, “I will bring them to a goodly land; 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 


153 


I will bring them to a land flowing with milk and 
honey.” From the time a man gets converted, God 
will take care of him if he keeps doing His whole will. 

The main thing the “old man” wants is to have 
an easy time for himself. Moses, I suppose, might 
have had a fine easy time, but he purposed to see the 
reward at the end of the race to Heaven. The king 
of Egypt himself had to listen to Moses. He knew 
God was with Moses. God talked to Moses, and then 
Moses talked to the king. Perhaps you, some day, may 
be upon your face before God, praying and asking 
Him to help you, and within twenty-four hours, you, 
one of the least known people in the town, may be be- 
fore the mayor to answer for what you did and said in 
obedience to God. You need not be frightened. God 
is able to give you a mouth and wisdom which all your 
adversaries will not be able to gainsay or resist. 

I have heard the following lessons from the signs 
which God gave to Moses to show before Pharaoh. He 
cast down a rod and it became a serpent which every 
one could see, and that might represent one’s out- 
ward sins. Moses takes the rod up again and the out- 
ward sins are gone; but people will not believe in you 
even if they do not see outward sins. Then Moses 
thrusts his hand into his bosom and brings it out 
covered with leprosy which is a type of inbred sin. 
Drawing forth his hand he finds the leprosy gone. 
Get rid of the leprosy (inbred sin) and people will rec- 
ognize the change in you. 

A certain southern preacher used to tell about a lady 


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who would keep her grace to a certain point, then she 
would lose her temper. She was advised to say, when 
tempted by what occurred in her home, “Jesus saves 
me now.” One day her little girl spilled the molasses 
and she said, “Jesus saves me now,” but the accident 
so confused her that she forgot to put something into 
the biscuits to make them light. When she sat down 
with her husband to eat, he picked up a biscuit and 
said, “I could knock down a yearling heifer with this,” 
and she said, “Jesus saves me now.” Her husband 
asked in astonishment what she was saying, and she 
replied, “ ‘Jesus saves me now/ I said,” and it so 
put him under conviction that he said, “Pray for 
me,” and he knelt and was converted and arose and 
ate the biscuit before it was cold. 

I read of an eminent theologian who said that 
we could not have revivals now, that people had changed 
and did not want real salvation, that they wanted 
something which would convince the intellect; but we 
know that under the preaching of Hell-fire men will 
fall under the convicting power of God as they did 
in the days of old. God says, “I will take you to me 
for a people, and I will be to you a God : and ye 
shrdl know that I am the Lord your God, which bring-- 
etn you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 
And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the 
which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and 
to Jacob; and I will give it to you for an heritage: I 
am the Lord.” 

What was the effect of the presentation of ^od’s 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 155 

message upon Pharaoh. He was hardened. The Word 
will either harden or soften you. Could not Pharaoh 
have been saved? “For this cause have I raised thee 
up, for to shew in thee my power. ,, How did Pharaoh 
show God’s power ? He was destroyed because he 
hardened his heart. God’s power was shown when that 
man who had rebelled against God and whose lips had 
muttered curses and imprecations against the children 
of Israel, and especially against Moses, was drowned. 
Miriam went out with all the women with timbrels 
and dances and sang, “Sing ye to the Lord, for he 
hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath 
he thrown into the sea.” Think of Miriam thanking 
God for throwing those men into the sea. Do you 
suppose she was delighted because they were drowned? 
The subject of her delight was that she knew the will 
of God was being done and that millions of people were 
out of bondage. Pharaoh had had his chance of getting 
saved, for he had been preached to by Miriam’s brother. 
No greater preacher could have preached to him. Pha- 
raoh had had every opportunity of repentance, and when 
Miriam saw him hurled into the sea, she praised God. 

If you are at the left hand at the Judgment and 
God says, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire,” the angels will say, “Amen.” God will be glori- 
fied in some way. Every one will show God’s power 
in some way: either by getting the baptism with the 
Holy Ghost or by hardening the heart and being de- 
stroyed. The last thing the angels will say when you 
drop into Hell will be, “Glory to God,” because it will 


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show the glory of God for His enemies to receive 
justice. God raised up each one of us to glorify Him, 
and you will show the glory of God by perfect obe- 
dience, or you will show it by hardening into stone. 
God sends the light to you. When the rays of light 
from the sun fall upon mud, they harden it; but when 
they fall upon butter, it melts. The same tempera- 
ture, the same sun, the same day, the same hour — the 
mud hardens and the butter melts. 

When you hear the truth of God and get His light 
upon your pathway, your nature either melts or hardens. 
People can sit in the old-line churches and hear 
the “Gloria Patria” and no one is either hardened or 
mellowed; but let one of God’s Spirit-baptized chil- 
dren shout or jump in the Holy Ghost and some will 
say, “That person is crazy,” while others will get under 
conviction. Thus are people brought to judgment. 

We go to a town and God puts the power on us 
and we begin to shout and jump, and if there be a 
little company of people there who really love God, 
even if they have not had much light, we cannot get 
rid of them, no matter how we jump and scream. Per- 
haps they do not understand the demonstration, but they 
like the preaching. “There is something,” they say, “in 
their preaching that warms my heart, and I am going 
to the meeting again.” 

We went to a certain place in Massachusetts where 
a good old saint lived, and held a meeting in the town. 
We began to jump and praise the Lord and shout, 
and some one wanted to arrest us. This woman’s son 


Moses — Faith Triumphant 


157 


went home and asked his mother about us. She was 
a woman of prayer and said, “Give me until tomorrow,” 
and she talked to God and in the morning was ready 
with her answer. She said, “God showed me it is the 
midnight cry of the virgins, ‘Behold, the bridegroom 
cometh; go ye out to meet him.’ Do not oppose these 
people.” God gives us “letters of introduction” wher- 
ever we go. 

If you hope to stand on the sea of glass in Heaven 
you must here mount the billows of temptation and 
be victorious over all sin. Do not think for a minute 
if you say “no” to God that you will ever see His 
glory. Suddenly you will be choking in the flames 
of damnation. Yes, Pharaoh had opportunity to get 
saved. Moses was no doubt the greatest preacher of 
those early days and God sent him to hold a revival 
of religion before Pharaoh. Pharaoh had Moses to 
talk to face to face. He rejected the most powerful 
preacher of his day, and you would say he ought to 
be damned. Pharaoh did nt>t go to Hell without 
opportunity to be saved ; neither will you. You have 
had, or are having, your chance to get saved. Some have 
had their opportunity and it has gone by unimproved. 
They can teach Latin and Greek in the colleges and 
they can go to the art institutes, but I am glad I can 
kneel at the feet of Jesus and break my alabaster box. 
They can get their three per cent per annum, but I 
like the smell of precious ointment. They can put their 
money in the bank; but when the Lord wanted a com- 
mittee meeting on the top of the Mount of Transfig- 


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uration, He looked over Heaven and selected Moses 
and Elijah, and they talked of the crucifixion and 
the death and the resurrection of the Son of God. 
Moses was enjoying some of the fruits of his sur- 
render. This was one of the results of his choosing to 
suffer affliction with the people of God. Thank God! 
We are enjoying to this day the results of Moses’ obe- 
dience. 

While on earth, Moses often went to the moun- 
tain to talk with God and God told him about the tab- 
ernacle and just how each part was to be and even 
how many threads of certain colors he was to use. He 
told Moses because He knew he would do exactly 
what He wanted him to do. There was a halo of 
glory around Moses’ head, and one of these days we 
who are faithful will meet him in Heaven, one who 
obeyed God. Moses saw what the king wanted 
and saw what God wanted and did what God told him 
to do. Instead of the Israelites’ being slaves, they were 
taken out of miserable bondage, their minds were 
educated in the things of God and they were made 
an independent people in the land of Canaan. Moses 
gave them advice and a godly example and led them 
as far as God would let him take them, and then went 
into a mountain and God introduced him to the angels. 
He was a man who had a chance to get a throne and 
a crown on earth; but he turned his back upon them 
and was true to God and is today in Heaven, before 
the throne of God. 


ACHAN 

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 


“Josihua, and all Israel with him, took Achan * * * 

and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, 
and his sons, and his daughters, an.d his oxen, * * * 

.and all that he had: and they brought them unto the 
valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled 
us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel 
stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after 
they had stoned them with stones. And they raised over 
him a great heap of stones un.to this day. So the Lord 
turned from the fierceness of his anger. Wherefore the 
name of that place was called, The valley of Achor, unto 
this day.” Joshua 7:24-26. 


SERMON EIGHT 


ACHAN 

THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN 

R ECORDED in the book of Joshua is the story of a 
man who was much like many persons of today 
who have backslidden and yet remain members of the old- 
line churches. They are causing defeat and everywhere 
hindering revivals. Many people say that they will never 
join a holiness church, and will not for any consider- 
ation be one of its members. Thank God 1 we are 
glad that those who will not cease from sin and take 
the narrow way are not desiring to join a true holi- 
ness church, because if there is anything that hinders 
revivals, it is a company of “Achans.” Their names 
are on some church roll and they profess to be one 
with the so-called people of God, but in the major- 
ity of cases they have never been saved from their 
sins, or if they were at one time, it was long ago and 
they are now backslidden. 

The church cannot work well with a sinner on board. 
A great fish once swallowed a sinner named Jonah; 
but as soon as it was discovered that Jonah was on 
board, all the digestive organs of the fish called an 
official board meeting and refused to digest him. 
It seems that although the fish had its stomach full, 


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it could not enjoy the victuals: Jonah had to be thrown 
out. As soon as a good church swallows a sinner, 
all of its organs are disarranged, and they begin to 
work in inverse order to throw the sinner out. But 
if the different churches over the country, that are so 
thankful when some certain popular worldlings take 
communion, knew the facts in the case, they are but 
taking on board that much carnality, and are there- 
by increasing their velocity toward Hell. A man who 
has the devil in his heart is a very bad potion to 
swallow. Thank God, it is not necessary to have such 
people in the church. 

The aim of God’s true preacher is to get people 
saved and rid of the “old man.” If he were to fol- 
low the example of the fallen churches in accepting 
unconverted persons into membership, his company 
would soon be a backslidden outfit, devoid of holy zeal, 
power and spiritual activity, and have no place in God’s 
catalogue of the redeemed and no power to win souls. 
Unless you are measuring up to God’s law, you will 
not be a desirable person to join a true holiness church. 

There had been a great battle at Jericho and God 
had been rewarding faith. He had answered prayer 
with crumbling walls, tottering towers and falling build- 
ings. He had upset architecture amid smoke and fire 
and the storm of His wrath. The people of God cheered 
with loud huzzas to see the way in which God had ful- 
filled His promises and given such great victory and 
power over their enemies. Up went the colors of 
Immanuel and down went the flag of the enemy; walls 


Achan — The Consequences of Sin 163 

crashed and fell on bruised and bleeding sinners, crushing 
out many a life, and over the awful debris of that 
ruined city, the praises of the angels, the huzzas of the 
saints and the screams of victory sounded in one great 
harmony before God. Thank God for a battle that 
ends with the seal of victory like that of Jericho! God 
Almighty looked down upon the scene and was well 
pleased; and it has pleased Him to bring the old ram’s 
horn blare down to the present time in the shouts of 
the saints. Thousands of people were killed, no doubt 
hundreds of buildings were thrown down, and God’s 
side had a victory which every one knew about. 

Let us pass on to the record which was made at 
the next town. It was a little town by the name of 
Ai. The scouts said to Joshua, “Let not all the people 
go up; but let about two or three thousand men go 
up and smite Ai; and make not all the people to labour 
thither ; for they are but few.” So about three thousand 
men went up to Ai. Joshua was expecting the walls 
to crumble as at Jericho, expecting to see the king 
slain and expecting the men who were sent up to 
return to the camp with the spoil of battle; but instead 
he found his people fleeing down the hill and the peo- 
ple of Ai very likely laughing at them. What was the 
matter at Ai? Was the enemy so powerful, the king 
so great and strong? Was the defeat caused because 
Joshua had sinned? Was it because the leader was 
not holy? Was it because Israel was unclean? What 
was the trouble? One man had sinned and thus was 
caused the defeat of God’s people. 


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What did Joshua do? He fell upon his face and 
God called to him and asked, “Wherefore liest thou thus 
upon thy face? Israel hath sinned, and they have, 
also transgressed my covenant,” and Joshua had to go 
and dig out the sin. 

God did not want leaven around the camp. He had 
not promised to give victories extraordinary or other- 
wise where there was covered sin. Where God is, there 
you will find the clarion note of victory. 

God can ferret out sin as well today as He could 
five or six thousand years ago. When Adam and Eve 
sinned in the garden they tried to hide from God ; 
but God could see them. Cain thought he could slay 
Abel and escape punishment, but it was hardly any time 
before God said, “Where is thy brother?” There is 
not a man who has committed sin, but that God has 
said to him, “What is this you have been doing?” 
You have been trying to make a covering, but God has 
been after you ever since you committed that sin. 

God hates sin and worldliness, especially when 
found in the church. God wants a church clean and on 
fire for Him, no matter how small it is. In a clean 
church a revival will be in progress constantly: sinners 
will confess their sins, make restitution and get saved, 
while others will be sanctified. Thank God ! 

Joshua inquired of the Lord and the Lord told him 
what the man who had sinned had done. Do not think 
that the Lord appoints leaders and then leaves them in 
the dark. Joshua said, “What does this defeat mean?” 
and when he found what had caused it, he said, “We 


Achan — The: Consequences of Sin 165 

will go to work and take care of that.” Perhaps a pas- 
tor receives a visit from Mrs. Jones, and she says, “Mr. 
Smith did so-and-so, and should be dealt with.” “O,” 
says the pastor, “you must not say anything about that 
gentleman. He has been a member of the church for 
twenty years and gives largely to its benevolences; in 
fact, this carpet we now have was given by him.” That 
preacher is full of the devil. If he had not been with- 
out the power of God he would have dug up Mr. Smith. 
The minute we consent to cover sin or iniquity in 
ourselves or others, the Spirit of God will depart from 
our souls. The pastor has the choice of possibly losing 
the sinner or certainly losing God. Churches will pros- 
per if persons who will not get right will get out; but 
the church cannot afford to compromise and lose God. 

God said, “Israel hath sinned, and they have also 
transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: 
for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and 
have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have 
put it even among their own stuff” (Joshua 7:11). 
God told Joshua about the sin of Achan and that, too, 
while the stolen property was still hidden. God knew 
exactly where it was, although securely hidden. There 
is not a sinner in the world, though he may belong 
to a dead church, but that God knows what sin ne 
has committed, how he has concealed it and of all the 
particulars. 

There are people whom God has called to certain 
fields of usefulness, but they have disobeyed the call, 
and they imagine God has forgotten all about them. 


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Achan came out to meeting, but how could he enjoy the 
meeting when he thought about the wedge and the 
goodly Babylonish garment that were hidden beneath 
the tent? What else did he hide? Some shekels of silver. 
What did he need? Did God say that he needed some 
kind of soothing syrup ? Did God say the cause would be 
so much stronger if Achan would confess his sin and 
decide to live right thereafter? What did the Lord say 
he needed? God’s opinion was that he needed to be 
stoned. God is angry with the sinner every day — with 
every sinner, whether he belongs to a church or not. 
Jesus, our Advocate, pleads with the Father that the 
sinner be given a little more time in which to repent; 
but presently, if he does not repent, God will, by one 
stroke, remove him from the face of the earth. 

Think of a person’s living for forty or fifty 
years, getting to be gray-haired, and still a cumberer of 
the earth, chewing tobacco, hanging onto worldli- 
ness and stealing from God Almighty. Think of men 
who retain their sinful habits, women who are unwilling 
to give up sin and abandon fashionable garb, continuing 
their rebellion year after year. When a false shep- 
herd and his flock of false professors attempt to hold 
a revival, these unholy society people “go forward” and 
receive the usual handshake and are welcomed into 
membership, if you please, but from that time on the 
devil assumes more of the management of that church. 
The power of God is not on the preacher; he does not 
uncover sin; the “ashes” and “cinders” accumulate; the 
sinners increase and there is no salvation. 


Achan — The Consequences oe Sin 167 

Do you wonder that God gave such an example 
in the Bible? What did Achan do? He hid a Baby- 
lonish garment. Where did he get it? I do not know 
the person’s name from whom he took it, but he stole 
it and kept it. The garment was Babylonish, and Bab- 
ylon is a type of the fallen church. Today God may 
be talking to some one about wearing worldly garments, 
some one who belongs to an apostate church. At 
that time God was dealing with a man who had stolen 
a goodly Babylonish garment. There are young men 
belonging to the Epworth League and the Christian 
Endeavor and young men belonging to the Y. M. C. A. 
who have never had the power of God on them. They 
go to the meetings, but there is not a spark of fire 
in their prayers; their testimonies are dry and empty. 
You ask, “What is the cause?” They have united 
with some labor union, or put on some ungodly 
garment of worldliness, and God cannot work through 
them while they are displeasing Him thus. 

What did Achan steal ? He stole a wedge of 
gold. There is not a sinner who has not stolen a 
wedge of gold. You may say, “I belong to the church,” 
but you have stolen a wedge of gold. There was that 
friend whom you knew for many years and with 
whom you attended school; but you were busy with 
your accounts, and he was busy with his own affairs, 
and you neglected to speak to him about his soul. 
You did not feel like it, and now you hear of his death. 
You had an opportunity of bringing the gospel to him 
and of bringing him to God. You had an opportunity 


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of gold which you stole and hid away and let that man 
go unwarned; and thus you have met people all through 
your life to whom you might have taken blessings. 
God is looking for people who will improve their 
opportunities, but you are letting people slip into Hell. 
There are people who are screaming and shrieking in 
Hell because you stole opportunities which the Lord put 
in your way, and because you neglected to obey God 
and be true to their souls. 

There are people scattered over the country whom 
God wants saved and in His service. He has told 
them to present their bodies a living sacrifice, but in- 
stead of obeying they met those whom they loved bet- 
ter than God, yoked up with them in unholy alliance 
and today are miserable, disappointed people. You 
do not think God Almighty can keep up to you, but 
as certainly as you are away from Jesus, God has you 
on His list of unsaved people. You have stolen your- 
self from Him and are accursed in His sight, and you 
are having part in sending the world to damnation. 
But thank God! He still sits on the throne and you 
can appeal unto Him at once for salvation. 

Why do so many churches have darkened windows, 
and why are their doors open on Thursday nights for 
entertainments? One of the reasons is because sal- 
vation is at such low ebb. The Y. M. C. A. of the 
land makes much of water instead of fire, and has 
swimming tanks instead of revival meetings. The 
enemy has captured that association, put out its fire, 
and instead of its young men being saved and sane- 


Achan — The: Consequences of Sin 169 

tified, they are, in too many cases, smoking cigarettes 
and cursing and playing pool and billiards. They are 
full of wickedness and are on their way to destruc- 
tion. Very little vital religion can be found on the 
earth today. 

A brother who was a professed Christian had a 
locker in the Y. M. C. A. of Chicago. At about a quar- 
ter of twelve o’clock each day he would go into the 
gymnasium and run a mile. He told me that if I did 
not join the association and start running and jumping 
and kicking I would lose my health. But God had 
given me salvation and I told the Lord that I would 
not go to the Y. M. C. A., that I would not run on its 
tracks or jump in its games or have anything to do with 
its basket ball, but if He would help me, I would be at 
the revival meeting every night and take my part. The 
Lord put the demonstration of the Holy Ghost upon me 
and I soon saw that the run and jump were part of God’s 
Holy Ghost program. I told the Y. M. C. A. superin- 
tendent that I would not go to any place in which I could 
not pray, and I would not want to pray in a place where 
I could not jump. The great trouble with the Y. M. C. A. 
is that it has lost its salvation while it has kept its gym- 
nasium. 

Jack London, the great socialist, said that ours is 
the kind of religion he should want if he had any, 
because it combines athletics and salvation, and he 
judged by our faces that we are the happiest people 
in the world. He thought the three — athletics, salva- 
tion and happiness — a good combination. 


170 Sermons on Bible Characters 

I have seen a policeman stationed at the Y. M. C. A. 
gymnasium to maintain order and to keep the young 
men from fighting with each other. If a person ac- 
cidentally bumps into another when they are playing, 
the one whose head gets bumped says something, then 
the other one says something back which would not look 
well in print, and then the one with the bumped head 
comes back at him, when in comes the policeman and 
stops them, so that they can keep “saved and sanctified." 

Thank God that in the meetings which I attend, 
if you are a child of God, you can run, jump and keep 
the power of God, and if some one does bump against 
you, all he gets is a “hallelujah!” There are Y. M. C. 
A.’s from one end of the country to the other and 
cross the ocean and you can find them in the old coun- 
try, but their fires have gone out and souls are not 
getting saved. They have nothing but fine club houses 
where people can play games, read secular papers and 
have a big time ; or where they can listen once in a while 
to some dry Bible reading, but never see a revival. 

God said to Joshua, “We need, not one man more, 
but one man less”; and what the so-called churches 
which are full of backsliders need, is not one hundred 
members more, but about two hundred members less. 
What the modern church of Christendom needs is a 
great back door revival, and to lock the front door 
while the revival is going on. Get the number down to 
two or three, or one or two who have salvation ; for 
Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered together 
in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” 


Achan — The Consequences oe Sin 171 

How are you going to do? Are you going to hide 
your stolen property, as did Achan, and grieve God and 
say, “I will have this when every one else’s money is 
gone”? You think it is so nice to have a little some- 
thing laid by, a life insurance policy when husband is 
gone and cannot bring in any more money; but when 
you depend on such things God is not pleased. 

What did the members of Joshua’s church do? Did 
Joshua sit still and say, “Yes, Achan, I am so glad you 
are here, and how is young Achan and Mary Achan? 
I am so glad to see you”? No, it was not that way. 
God would have Achan punished, and the Israelites 
had to stone even the cow that Achan milked. The 
Bible says that much. Joshua took the oxen and sheep 
and the sons and daughters and the tent and the whole 
outfit and stoned them, because Achan thought he was 
a little smarter than God’s people and knew better how 
to do. The Lord had a rock pile raised over them, 
so that any one who should pass that place would be 
reminded of the Babylonish garment and the wedge of 
gold which Achan had stolen. God save us from 
avarice ! 

Achan confessed, and God said that he must die, 
and they gathered their marksmen to hurl rock after 
rock against his defenseless body and upon his family 
and upon his property, until God had stamped that 
sin out of the sight of the people. 

The next day there was a different report in the 
camp, at Ai and wherever the news was heard. God’s 
power had come upon the Israelites again. 


172 Sermons on Bible Characters 

Brother, no one can force you to pay what you 
owe for box-car rides; young men, you may think you 
do not need to make restitution ; young girls, you may 
think you do not need to confess your sins ; but you 
will each have to give an account when God opens His 
books to read your records at the Judgment bar. God 
Almighty will, one of these mornings, bring you up be- 
fore an assembled universe, and justice will start in 
hurling rocks of vengeance upon you, and as the mis- 
siles break upon your sinful head, you will go crashing 
down the abyss of eternity into outer darkness, and the 
angels will say “Amen.” 

Keep the Babylonish garment, keep it; keep your 
shekels. God will root out the Achans and bury them with 
their shekels underneath a rock pile. You who are not 
improving your opportunities for saving people will see 
the work of God go on, but you will get your punish- 
ment for neglected opportunities. If God had from that 
time on taken the same method to punish people, He 
would now have a range of Rocky Mountains from this 
country to Palestine and back again, several times over. 
You are allowing people to go on down to Hell un- 
warned; but some one of these days or nights you will 
go down with them. Think not that because God’s judg- 
ment has not come yet, it will never overtake you. Judg- 
ment against an evil work is no less certain because 
it is not executed speedily. God will not acquit the 
wicked. You may shun to preach the whole truth 
and refuse to become foreign missionaries, but know this, 
that for all your sins God will bring you into judgment. 


ABRAHAM 

FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL 


“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into 
a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, 
obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a 
strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and 
Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he 
looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder 
and maker is God.” Heb. 11:8-10. 


SERMON NINE 


ABRAHAM 

FATHER OF THE FAITHFUL 

HY READING the entire twelfth chapter of Gen- 
* esis, a great deal can be learned about Abraham, 
the Father of the Faithful. The true sons and daughters 
of Abraham, the true children of faith, will one of these 
days be gathered from the east and the west and invited 
to sit down with him in the kingdom. 

The Christian life is a life of faith. Abraham was 
called to step out and live by faith. How easy it would 
have been for him had he stayed at home ! If Chris- 
tians continue to walk with God, He will see to it 
that many of them get up and out of their home coun- 
try. In some instances people have had to get out of 
the country or life in which they lived, before they 
could even start to walk with God. 

God’s first instruction to Abraham to which our at- 
tention is attracted was, “Get thee out of thy coun- 
try.” He told him to leave his country and said He 
would lead him to another of which He would tell him. 
That is the way God does with His people. You may 
have noticed the instruction on a bottle of medicine, 
“Shake well before using.” The idea of the doctor 
was, no doubt, to get all the ingredients shaken and 


176 Sermons on Bible Characters 

mixed so that they would work together. There is no 
monotony about a Christian’s life. It is well shaken. 
One of the first things God did with Abraham was to 
give him a good shaking. God will shake you and the 
devil will too, and between the two you are going to 
have a great time. “Up and get out” was the order. 

There is a story in some book (I do not know how 
true it is) which tells that Abraham’s father, Terah, 
was a manufacturer of heathen idols. He made them 
of wood and stone — whatever he thought would sell well. 
Abraham, according to the story, worked in the fac- 
tory. His father went away one day, and Abra- 
ham went down with a big club and broke all the idols, 
except one big one, and then put the club with which he 
had broken the others into the hand of that one. 
When Terah came back he said to Abraham, “What 
did you mean by breaking all these idols?” and Abra- 
ham pointed to the club in the big idol’s hand and to 
the big idol and said, “Blame it onto him.” But the 
father said, “You know I am not so foolish as to be- 
lieve that.” Then Abraham said, “If that idol has not 
the power to knock all the other idols down, he has 
not the power to forgive sins.” And so when God said 
to Abraham, “Get up and get out,” he had sense enough 
to obey. 

It is hard to get God’s people to give up their sal- 
vation, and one of the most damaging things that re- 
mains for the devil to do is to make other people tell 
a whole lot of lies about them and to so keep up the re- 
proach that hungry souls will be kept away from the 


Abraham — Father of the Faithful 177 

land of Canaan where there are olives and pomegran- 
ates and grapes and the wine of the kingdom to drink. 
God’s people are the happiest in the world. They are 
enjoying the land of Canaan. Thank God! 

“Abraham, get out of the country.” What does it 
mean for a married woman to get salvation? It means 
that if her husband says, “If you go to the altar 
and get saved, do not dare come home again,” she will 
go to the altar, get converted and go back home re- 
gardless of the consequences. When you get salvation, 
you get out of the old life and into the new ; you leave 
the old life of wickedness and get into a life of free- 
dom from sin. The trip is more than ten thousand 
miles, and a greater gap is made between you and your 
husband than would be made by your going to India. 
You may sit in one chair and he in a chair right be- 
side you, but in five minutes after you get salvation 
there will be a mighty gulf between you and him. 

“Get out of the country.” Perhaps you are a clerk 
and some customer comes in and says, “What kind of 
goods are all of these?” and you say, “They are good, 
all wool, a yard wide and fast colors.” You know they 
are not, but to keep your position you must look 
wise and sell the goods. Even after you have lied 
like that in your work, you go over to the little syna- 
gogue and sing: 

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” etc., 
and the result of the lie and the hypocritical profes- 
sion will be damnation for you, unless you repent. 
When you have salvation, if the colors are not fast, you 


178 Sermons on Bible Characters 

will say that they are not, though you lose your posi- 
tion the next moment. 

Maybe you are a stenographer, and when your em- 
ployer dictates something that is not true, if you are 
a Christian, you will say, “I cannot write that ; it is 
not true.” Perhaps he will say, “You write that or 
leave this office.” Why does this happen? Because you 
got out of the old country. 

There are many people who do not like to get out 
of the old country, or, if they get out, they want to take 
all the things of the old life with them. They want 
to have that nice home and easy way; they want money 
and fine things ; they want to carry them to Heaven with 
them. But I believe that when Abraham got up and 
went out, he did not carry any idols with him; and he 
is a bright person who does not hang around the edges 
of a good experience and wonder how much he can 
save himself and still be on the victory side. We ought 
not to start out in the Christian race thinking how much 
we can keep, but how much w-e can give to God. The 
only way to keep victory is to launch out into the deep 
water and out upon God’s mighty promises. Look at 
the old prophets’ lives and. see if you can find one who 
ever gave all to God and that then God failed to stand 
by him, live or die, survive or perish. 

It is a wonderful thing to have faith in God. Yet 
some one asks, “How much can I hold back, so that in 
case something happens, I shall still have a little to fall 
back upon? How much can I save and leave on de- 
posit with a certificate at four per cent? How much 


Abraham — Father of the Faithfue 179 

can I save myself ?” Jesus said, “Whosoever will save 
his life shall lose it.” 

Thank God for a few who can testify' that they have 
no intention of going back. They have nothing to go 
back to because everything has been given to God. All 
through the Bible, God points people to two works of 
grace, and from one efld of the country to the other 
people are seeking the second blessing, but few there 
be that find what they seek. They fail because they 
reserve something, because they withhold some part of 
the price. 

Notice Abraham’s inheritance. He left the old home 
and began to walk with God with the determination 
01 one vvho felt he could not afford to make any blun- 
ders. He kept the track, thank God, and God after- 
ward showed him the whole country of Palestine as 
his inheritance and said, “If you want to see the book 
of your posterity, look up at the stars. There is the 
number of your seed.” In other words, Abraham owned 
everything beneath his feet and everything above him. 
Brethren, the Bible says, “Blessed are the meek: for 
they shall inherit the earth.” Just give us a few years, 
and you will see us sitting with Jesus on His throne 
having a good time and helping to rule the world. That 
is what the Bible says. If Abraham had turned back, 
he might have had the good will of his country, and 
so might God’s people of today; but thank God we do 
not desire to turn back. 

I was holding meetings some years ago in S . I 

had tickets printed which said, “I am helping the re- 


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Sermons on Bible Characters 


vival at the church; are you?” And each of those 

fashionable church members went down town with one 
of those tickets pinned on his coat, advertising the 
meeting. It cost money to advertise in that manner ; 
but when you get sanctified, the Lord gives you enough 
salvation so that all you need to do for adver- 
tisement is to hold a meeting and soon out will come 
the people to hear this wonderful gospel. They will 
listen a little while, when some will begin to wipe 
their eyes, and some of them will get saved and start 
on their way to Heaven. 

A building association promises that if you invest 
your money with it, in a few years you will get 
your money back with interest; but the Bible says that 
if you give up one house, the Lord will give you one 
hundred houses. I never saw a society or an association 
like that. The Bible also says, “There is no man that 
hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or 
mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and 
the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now 
in this time, * * * and in the world to come eternal life,” 
— eternal life and a mansion in Heaven where there 
is no more of serving a notice on one to come 
around on the first day of the month and pay his rent. 
There is nothing like that where we are going. 

“Get up and get out.” Abraham knew how to trust 
God. Why, the minute a child of God kneels down, 
his knees seem to touch a hidden spring. All he has 
to do is to turn on the faucets and down will come 
the showers of blessing. Some of you are trying to im- 


Abraham — Father of the Faithfue 181 

prove on God’s way, and you get the worst of it. Abra- 
ham said, “I am willing to leave every one,” and he 
shook hands with his friends and started out, and God 
sent the angels ahead to measure the ground for him. 

The next great event in Abraham’s life was his 
choice. Abraham had a business partner, and they be- 
came so rich that by and by the herdsmen were quar- 
reling over the property. A lamb would be born and 
both wanted it. There was the poor, little, woolly thing, 
and it could not say whose it was. So Abraham told 
Lot to take his choice of the land for his future home. 
It is a hard thing for the natural man to see another 
get the best of things; but Abraham was trusting God. 
Lot went out and viewed the beautiful plain and the 
valuable property toward Sodom and Gomorrah, the 
cities of the plain, and said, “That is the country for 
me to go to,” but Abraham said, “I believe I will stay 
in Canaan.” So Lot started for the East and dwelt 
in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent toward 
Sodom. 

Look for a moment at Lot’s chosen country. Lot 
made friends with the people and was prosperous in 
business and seemed to enjoy life very well, but the 
Bible says that the vale of Sodom (Siddim) was full 
of slimepits, and that is true of a man’s business en- 
vironment: it is full of slimepits. He does not jour- 
ney far without finding a slimepit. He wishes to do 
a certain way, and in order to do so he has to compro- 
mise with politicians. A business man finds that if he 
carries on his business in an upright manner it will cost 


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1 82 Sermons on Bible Characters 

him a lot of money, but that if he will go about it in 
another and questionable manner, it will cost him only 
about one-tenth as much. If he owns a big block of 
buildings, and the taxes are very high, he finds that 
he can slip around and do a certain wrong way and 
it will cost him only forty per cent as much. The Bi- 
ble is true. The vale of Sodom was full of slimepits, 
and the average business man is full of slimy ways. 
Lot was prospering in his new country, but by and by, 
up came five worldly kings who captured him and his 
family and possessions and took them away. 

Here old Abraham comes upon the scene again. He 
is acquainted with God, and he prays God to help Lot. 
Abraham called in his trained servants and away they 
went in pursuit. Some one might have said, “Hy, Abra- 
ham, what are you doing with all that crowd?” and 
the answer would have been, “I must go and get Lot. 
He is in trouble.” 

“Well, what are you doing with all those weapons 
of battle?” 

“I have to help Lot; he is in trouble.” 

A person might have looked at the faces of those 
determined, faithful men and said, “What are you go- 
ing to do?” and he would have received the answer, 
“We will follow Abraham and do what he says.” Pres- 
ently Abraham came upon the company of kings. Sud- 
denly when one of the old kings leaped up, Abraham 
advanced and cut his head off, and Abraham’s men 
helped to kill that company of kings. When they came 
to Lot, one of them took a knife and cut the rope that 


Abraham — Father or the Faitheue 183 

bound him, and Lot gave a few jumps, and, to make 
a long story short, it was a complete defeat for the 
other side. Though it left Abraham bloody and tired, 
he gathered in all the spoil, the gold and garments 
and different things. 

Perhaps the devil told him at every step of the 
way, until he met Melchizedek, “You ought not to be 
such a cruel man. You are a backslider. You ought 
not to indulge in anything like that.” “Well,” Abra- 
ham said, “I am trusting the Lord,” and looking down 
the road he saw Melchizedek. Abraham looked in per- 
fect astonishment, for the priest had the Lord’s Sup- 
per spread out there, waiting for him. Melchizedek 
had Abraham and his company sit on the ground, say- 
ing to them, “I am Melchizedek, the priest of the most 
high God,” and he told Abraham that God was pleased 
with him. He gave him the sacrament of the Lord’s 
Supper, and there Abraham, with blood all over him, 
partook of the bread and wine. Then he took the sacks 
and counted out one-tenth of the spoil and handed the 
priest so much gold that he could hardly carry it. 
Perhaps Abraham said to himself, “The devil told me 
I was an old backslider, but the priest told me that 
my name is written in Heaven and that God Almighty 
is going to fulfill His promise to me.” 

The Quakers, thinking it was wrong to swear to 
a vow, allowed their people to make an affirmation in- 
stead of taking an oath in the courts of the world, but 
when God wanted to make an oath to Abraham, He 
knew of no greater to swear by so He swore by Him- 


184 Sermons on Bible Characters 

self. God knew Abraham would have to pass through 
a great many dangers and meet the enemies that dwelt 
throughout the land of Palestine, but He swore that if 
Abraham would be true, He would deliver him out of 
the hands of all his enemies, bring him into an ex- 
perience of holiness, keep him all the days of his life 
and, taking him up to the river of death, destroy his 
last enemy and take him into Heaven. God swore to it 
and He did not fail. 

Abraham was a rugged man. He dealt severely with 
sin. “Well/’ you say, “I think when one gets saved 
and sanctified he will be so sweet.” Yes, he will love 
righteousness and hate iniquity. If you get salvation 
you will not have your easy time in this life. Mel- 
chizedek was first, king of righteousness, then, king of 
peace. God’s people today are first, kings of righteous- 
ness and then, kings of peace. If you surrender to God 
you will find that you have had your last peaceful mo- 
ment as far as your dealings with the ungodly in this 
world are concerned. Your wife or husband or parents will 
perhaps turn against you or your children will call you 
crazy, but there is a blessing which goes along with all 
their manifestations of enmity and reproach which more 
than makes up for the loss of friends and for every- 
thing a person may suffer for Jesus’ sake. I believe 
that when we look at that white-robed throng in. 
Heaven and see some who came there through our in- 
strumentality, it will make us glad through all eternity. 

It is possible to win souls for Jesus. God can 
take a giddy, society girl and so save her and sanctify 


Abraham — Father oe the Faitheue 185 

her that she will pull people out of the fire here and 
there and everywhere. God is able to take your 
wealth, your property and jewelry and convert them 
into members of the white-robed throng over yonder. 

Abraham walked in the light and God led him into 
Canaan. God swore that He would deliver that godly 
man from all his enemies and He did. Who is your 
enemy ? The Bible says the carnal mind is enmity against 
God, and while people say that one can never be de- 
livered from it, the Scriptures teach that God will de- 
liver you from that enemy. Yes, the Lord God can free 
you from the carnal mind. Thank God, we can be de- 
livered from sinful lives and a guilty conscience and, 
better still, we can have the carnal mind, that enemy of 
God, which is born in every one, utterly destroyed. 

Thank God, we can get the experience of sancti- 
fication, for the Bible says, “This is the will of God, 
even your sanctification. ” That is something over which 
to rejoice. If we did not know anything about it ex- 
cept that Abraham got it, we would thank God for him. 
Enoch walked with God, and his walk was so perfect 
that he walked right into Heaven. Thank God for what 
He did for those men, but Paul looked people right 
in the face and said, “This is the will of God, even your 
sanctification.” It is the will of God. God Almighty 
gave the experience of holiness to Abraham and Enoch 
and He says that He is no respecter of persons. He 
says that if we ask anything according to His will, He 
will do it and that means, if I will ask God to sanc- 
tify me, He will do it. 


186 Sermons on Bible Characters 

I used to go to the Methodist altar and would 
think that I got this second blessing and would write 
in my Bible the time when I received it, to be sure to 
remember just when it was. Brethren, it is not nec- 
essary to write the date down in your Bible, because 
the Lord says He will put the sanctification right in 
your heart and then you will not forget it. He will 
brand you the same as a farmer brands his cattle. A 
farmer takes the animal, throws him, ties his feet to- 
gether and burns the initials right into him. That ani- 
mal will not forget it, and it will not wash off. That 
is the way God put the blessing of sanctification into 
my heart; but He had to throw me and tie my front 
and hind feet, as it were, and put the hot iron on to 
burn the mark in. It was several years ago, on the 
twenty-eighth of November, that Jesus did it, and it has 
stayed there until this very hour. I have not yet had 
to go to Him and ask Him to do it over again. Be- 
fore I was sanctified I used to give the Lord five per 
cent of my income and then ten per cent and then 
fifty per cent, but before I could get sanctified I put 
everything on the altar, and the Bible says in Exodus, 
that whatsoever touches the altar is holy. Be sure 
that you put everything on the altar before you pro- 
fess to have this experience. 

Our Altar is Jesus, and we have to come to Him 
with everything. With one person, to put one thing 
on the altar may be the most difficult, while with 
another person a different thing may be the most diffi- 
cult. No doubt the dearest thing in Abraham’s life was 


Abraham — Father ob the Faithbue 187 

that boy Isaac. Abraham did not care about the cam- 
els, the sheep or the land, but O how he loved that 
boy ! He was the son of promise. It had taken Abra- 
ham about one hundred years to pray him in, and I 
suppose that absolutely the hardest thing in the world 
for him to do was to give up that boy. 

God spoke to Abraham and said, “Take now thy 
son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest.” Abra- 
ham took him and put him on the altar. At the al- 
tar is where some people get a vague and indefinite ex- 
perience. They are counting how many things they 
think necessary to give to the Lord, instead of giving 
everything and not trying to withhold even a little. 

It is hard for some people to give up the pleasures 
of the world. We often hear people say that they do 
not think it is wrong to dance. Those people are not 
within ten thousand miles of conversion. The ques- 
tion of loving this world is settled while a person is 
under conviction. When a person becomes converted, 
he will lay aside all of the things of this world, be- 
cause the Bible says that then “old things are passed 
away; behold, all things are become new.” All those 
old sins and habits are washed away, and there is no 
more chewing, smoking or dancing. If we meet a man 
who has a good, hot experience o'f justification we can 
tell that man that it is God’s will to sanctify him, and 
he will be glad to hear the message and will walk in the 
light. Every true child of God longs to be sanctified. 
The chief enemy of a man on his way to Heaven is 
the devil, but, brethren, the Bible says that we shall 


1 88 Sermons on Bible Characters 

be saved from our enemies. God promised that to 
Abraham, and if we are children of faith the same 
promises are ours. 

The last enemy which shall be destroyed is death, 
and God swore that we should be delivered from death. 
You say, “Well, so you say you are never going to 
die?” No, I did not say that. To illustrate: The only 
reason I do not want to raise bees, is because they 
sting. I have had thirty-two of them put their sting- 
ers into me and it did not make me feel good, but if 
you will pull out their stingers I will let them crawl all 
over me and I will not be afraid of them. Now, the 
sting of death is sin, and Jesus Christ came down and 
took sin out of us, and for us death has been robbed 
of its “stinger” and we can let death crawl down 
our backbone and send cold chills all over us, but we 
are not afraid of it because Jesus pulled its “stinger” 
out. He has delivered us out of the hands of that 
enemy. 

I have been near when some saint has felt Death 
take him by the hand, but he was not afraid. I saw 
my old father when Death walked into his room, , and 
he looked him in the two eyes and shouted, “Hallelujah !” 
And I was there when Death walked into my mother’s 
room, and she raised her eyes and began to sing: 

“Jesus, keep me near the cross, 

There’s a precious fountain.” 

One of these days, according to the Bible, Jesus Christ 
is coming to take Hell and Death and cast them into 
the Lake of Fire. 


Abraham — Father oe the Faitheue 189 

Thank God, He never let Abraham come up to a 
battle but that He delivered him. Paul says in He- 
brews that Abraham believed God and walked out by 
faith and left everything. When he walked out, pos- 
sibly all that he had was a suit of clothes, but O could 
you see him now as he sits up there where they call 
him “Father Abraham” ! Paul says, “They which are 
of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” There 
is no one who has left parents or brothers or sisters, 
but he shall receive an hundredfold. You are not to 
leave your family in the sense of deserting them, but 
when your kinsfolk try to come in between you and 
your duty to God, if you love God with all your heart, 
you will choose to obey Him no matter what the con- 
sequences may be, rather than to please them. You 
may stay with your family and still have left them 
in the Bible sense. 

God’s people are a peculiar people, and they are 
also a very interesting people. We find some of them 
described in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. They 
were hungry, thirsty and thrust out, but finally they 
got through with that department and went to a place 
where they do not get hungry any more. I would 
rather be hungry in this world than in the next ; I would 
rather have fastings here than have an unsatisfied soul 
throughout eternity; I would rather have it the way it 
is now and Heaven by and by than to have an easy 
time here and spend eternity in Hell. Most people do 
not like fasting, they do not like praying, they do not 
like fighting for God, they do not like war with the 


190 Sermons on Bible Characters 

enemies of God; they want what good things they can 
have in this world. But the “friendship of the world 
is enmity with God,” and they are going to lose their 
souls for not being on God’s side. 

What do we get when we come to God to get saved? 
We get peace with God. He does not give peace with 
ungodly relations, He does not give peace with this 
world’s politics, but the kind which He does give 
endures forever. God puts a spirit of heroism into a 
man who is converted and sanctified. He puts a war- 
rior spirit into a man who is right in His sight. A 
man has war on his hands from the time he becomes 
converted until he leaps into Heaven having conquered 
all his enemies. May God keep us from getting to a 
place where we shall have the friendship of this world. 
The great bulk of nominal Christians have made peace 
with this world, and they have lost the peace of God. 

A gentleman called one day at the Fountain Spring 
House and wanted to see the president of the univer- 
sity. He said, “I am a Rabbi from Indiana.” He told 
us he lectured for colleges and that he had lectured 
in Waukesha. He said, “I frequently fill Protestant pul- 
pits. I invite their preachers into my pulpit, and they 
invite me into theirs.” I told him that I should think 
he would have a clash when he told them that Jesus is 
not divine. “O,” he said, “I do not tell them that. I 
have sense enough to leave out entirely those subjects 
about which we disagree.” He said, naming a city in 
Indiana, “I have been president of the preachers’ meet- 
ing there for many years.” I listened ten or fifteen 


Abraham — Father of the Faithful 191 

minutes while he told me about Moses and David and 
different ones. He was working his way up to ask to 
deliver a course of lectures before our school — our theo- 
logical students. 

Then we came to a discussion about the blood of 
Jesus. I said, “I have seen people get down, Brother, 
and within five minutes the blood of Jesus has made 
them all over new.” “Well,” he said, “I am glad to 
hear about that.” We talked on for quite a while. I 
said, “Do you not believe that a man who sins against 
God will be damned in an eternal Hell?” “O no,” he 
answered. I said, “Then you are not a Jew; for the 
Bible of the Jews says, ‘The wicked shall be turned 
into hell, and all the nations that forget God.’ ” In fact, 
about everything I said to him was out of the Old Tes- 
tament. He went on to discuss the subject of salvation 
and inquired, “What do you believe about a drunkard?” 

I replied, “I believe a man can actually come to Jesus, 
and though his sins be like scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they 
shall be as wool.” But he did not agree with me. 

When about to leave, he seemed not to feel friendly 
toward me, and I said, “I hope you will come back, 
and I pray God that you will go to your knees and 
become converted; for if you ever become converted it 
will be fine, and you can then go to Heaven.” Then 
he left; but a strong scent of tobacco lingered in the 
room in which he had sat. That Rabbi does not be- 
lieve in the Old Testament. Thank God that we like 
to declare the whole gospel. 


192 Sermons on Bibee Characters 

The Presbyterians preach, “Once in grace, always 
in grace.” Some are drinking wines famous in this 
world and are attending worldly banquets. That kind 
of people do not go to Heaven. They will surely be 
damned; God will not have them in Heaven. The peo- 
ple who get there and sit down with Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob will be those who have 'had their hard times 
in this country. 

How about the Apostle Paul? Had he not merit 
enough to interest the combined intellects of his day? 
How did he approve himself as a minister? It was 
“in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in dis- 
tresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in la- 
bours, in watchings, in fastings ; * * * by the Holy Ghost, 
by love unfeigned, * * * by the armour of righteousness 
on the right hand and on the left.” That was the rec- 
ord he gave for his credentials as a minister of God. 
It was nothing for Paul to fast so often that people 
might have thought he would certainly starve. But he 
said he could do all things through Christ. 

Perhaps the time when Paul was stoned was right 
after he had stood up to preach. He had preached 
but a few sentences, when he was lying senseless under 
a rock pile, and the only reason he was then left alone 
was because they thought that he was dead. His perse- 
cutors said, “Thank God, we have killed that heretic and 
have put him out of the way” ; but about that time God 
caught him up to Heaven and introduced him to Abra- 
ham and Noah. Perhaps after a while Paul said, “Ex- 
cuse me now, I want to go down and finish my work,” 


Abraham — Father or the Faitheue 193 

and he returned, and saying “good-by” to his friends, 
went on his way to the next town. 

I pray that God may never let us be free from trib- 
ulation until we walk the gold-paved streets of Heaven, 
for the Bible says that it is through much tribulation 
that we are to enter Heaven. 

You talk to one of these men who uses a hook for 
an arm. He used to carry the flag and he knows the 
old-time battle songs. He learned them by singing them 
on the banks of the rivers of the South. These old 
soldiers say that from the time when they entered the 
war, until they had victory, the music they listened 
to most of the time was that of the shot and shell. They 
saved their country, and it is no wonder they hold their 
convocations and get battle flags and rejoice and have 
a big time. But that is nothing compared to the joy 
which a man who suffers with Jesus will feel when 
he gets to Heaven. “If we suffer, we shall also reign 
with him.” Up there we shall be singing in the choir, 
praising God and singing the song of Moses and the 
Lamb, and if we should look back, the times when 
we fasted and went through tribulation will hardly be 
worth speaking of, compared with the glory of the 
riches that will surround us. 

Paul caught a glimpse inside the door of Heaven 
and looking back at his afflictions he said, “Our 
light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh 
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; 
while we look not at the things which are seen, but 
at the things which are not seen: for the things which 


194 Sermons on Bible Characters 

are seen are temporal; but the things which are not 
seen are eternal.” 

During the time of the war, there were, in this 
country, people who did not take sides. When the crowd 
on the right side was victorious, they favored them, 
but when the battle seemed to go against them, they 
spoke against them and said, “I told you so. They 
had no right to plunge this country into war and de- 
populate the cities and burn the buildings and waste 
the country’s money.” 

Many people today are talking in a similar manner 
in regard to the holy war. They are trying to pass 
as Christians with this one and with the other; but all 
who do not take God’s side in the war with Satan are 
going to Hell. The gospel where preached and prac- 
ticed, will make a division, will set father against daugh- 
ter and mother against son and father-in-law against 
daughter-in-law. “A man’s foes shall be they of his own 
household.” No one can be a Christian who will not 
forsake houses and lands and all for Jesus’ sake. But 
the Bible teaches that those who do so shall receive 
an hundredfold in this present time, with persecutions. 
In other words, when you become converted, you will 
have war in your home until you pray the devil out 
and get your relatives saved. That is what it means 
to forsake your relatives — to be so on fire for the Lord 
that whether they oppose you or not, you will be true 
to God. 

When you are converted and stay in a home with 
unconverted kinsfolk, then is the time that you will 


Abraham — Father or the Faithful 195 

have great opposition. They will say to you, “Why is 
it that you do not play the music that you used to 
play ?” If you are saved, you will not play schottishes 
and dances any more. You cannot play for balls and 
dances, although those who paid for your musical educa- 
tion may be much disappointed. Salvation takes the 
love for the old ways out. 

You may be teaching in a public school, but the 
Holy Ghost says to you, “I have a few millions of 
people on the other side of the ocean upon whom I am 
looking every day, and I want you to go into Arabia 
and teach those people about Jesus. Souls there are per- 
ishing for want of the light, and you can take the light 
to them.” God will select for this work some of you 
who are useful in this country ; He is not going to take 
those who are not successful here. The Lord often 
takes the best paid people in the city, sanctifies them 
and sends them to the foreign field and helps them to 
fight the battles there for Jesus. 

I remember a few boys at school who thought that 
boy was very foolish who spent much time on his les- 
sons, but when it came to the time of graduation, those 
few extra hours of study which we had put in while the 
others were out playing ball helped us in our examina- 
tion. You may think you can get to Heaven in the 
way your mother and your grandmother did, but you 
are not going the way they did. Your grandfather did 
not go to Heaven pushing a billiard cue around, and 
your mother did not go there playing cards. You re- 
member that your mother, if she was a real Chr; t an, 


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would spend hours every day praying in her closet. 
But you waste your time in pleasures and society in- 
stead of spending it in prayer, and you will find, when 
the final examination comes, that hours of prayer were 
what you needed. 

When you look into the jaws of Death and realize 
that you are facing eternity you will wish that the 
wasted years could be recalled and that you had another 
chance to prepare to meet Christ. Those who have 
made their peace with Him and have become His chil- 
dren can look forward to death without fear, for they 
know that after death comes Heaven where they will 
be introduced to the Father of the Faithful in that 
land where they have “a building of God, an house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” 


RAHAB 

THE SANCTIFIED HOTEL KEEPER 


14 


“And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two 
men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jeri- 
cho. And they went, and came into an harlot’s house, 
named Rahab, and lodged there. * * * And she said unto 
the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land, 
and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the 
inhabitants of the land faint because of you. * * * Now 
therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the Lord, since 
I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kind- 
ness unto my father’s house, and give me a true token. 
* * * And the men said unto her, We will be blameless of 
this thine oath which thou hast made us swear. Behold, 
when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of 
scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down 
by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and 
thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto 
thee. * * * And she said, According unto your words, 
so be it. And she sent them away, and they departed: and 
she bound the scarlet line in the window.” Josh. 2: 1-21. 

“And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father’s 
household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Is- 
rael even unto this day; because she hid the messengers, 
which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.” Josh. 6:25. 


SERMON TEN 


RAHAB 

THE SANCTIFIED HOTEL KEEPER 

P ERHAPS people who attend church regularly have 
heard the story of Rahab a score or more of times. 
The children of Israel had been in sore bondage in Egypt. 
Their cries and prayers for help had ascended to God 
for hundreds of years, and God sent deliverance in 
answer to their prayers. After the weary years of 
toil and irksome bondage, God one night sent the death 
angel over Egypt and over all the land of Goshen, and 
in every house where the blood had not been sprinkled 
upon the doorposts and upon the lintel, the firstborn 
was slain. That same night the Israelites were in 
their homes with their loins girt about, staff in hand 
and shoes on their feet, and when Moses gave the com- 
mand, out they stepped and the shackles of slavery 
fell from them. Away they went down the road with 
pockets and hands full of silver and gold jewelry 
which they had gotten from the Egyptians, for the 
Lord had blessed the Hebrews and given them favor 
in the sight of the Egyptians. The Israelites came to 
the Red Sea and saw it divide and they went over dry- 
shod. I do not blame Miriam for jumping, and I am 
positive that if you had been an Israelite and had 


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Sermons on Bible Characters 


seen the sea divide you too would have jumped and 
praised the Lord for deliverance. 

The children of Israel continued their journey to- 
ward Canaan, the land promised them by God, and 
just before they reached its borders, Moses sent twelve 
men over to view it. One of the twelve spies was named 
Joshua and another Caleb. One man was chosen from 
each tribe, and perhaps one was a doctor, one a judge, 
one a famous man and another a politician. I cannot 
tell you all the names and professions of those great 
men, but what was the report they brought? The judge 
said that it could not be that God would give the 
Israelites the Canaan experience in this life; the famous 
man said that no Israelite could live in the land of 
Canaan, etc. That is what famous preachers are say- 
ing all over the country today. You ask your pastor 
whether he thinks you can be sanctified wholly, and 
his answer will be similar to the report given by the 
ten evil spies. 

I heard an incident related about some dogs that 
were behind bars. A man came along with a basin of 
food, and these dogs tried to put their heads be- 
tween the bars to get the food, but they could not 
get through because their heads were too large. But 
one little dog with a very narrow head walked right 
through the bars and ate all the dinner. The great 
and mighty and the judges and doctors and the people 
with large heads say you cannot get sanctified, but if 
you will, you can walk right through and help your- 
selves to pomegranates, olives, grapes, old corn and 


Rahab — The; Sanctified Hotee Keeper 201 

everything that grows in Canaan. You inquire of the 
bishops who have been in the pulpit scores of years, 
whether one can get sanctified or not and they say, 
“O no! you cannot get sanctified in this life. ,> But 
in spite of their report, I notice some are able to get 
through and possess the land. 

Canaan is a goodly land that flows with milk and 
honey. You may not know exactly how a land could 
flow with milk, but this land was flowing with milk 
and honey, the Bible says, and I suppose that means 
that good blooded cows were there which ate so much 
rich clover that they could not wait until milking time 
and the bees filled the hollow trees with honey, until 
it dripped onto the ground, and thus the land actually 
flowed with the dripping milk and honey. That is the 
way the Lord is pleased to keep us supplied spirit- 
ually. That is the way He would like to feed every 
one. He does not want you, His child, to have a mea- 
ger experience; but He wants you to have rivers of 
milk and plenty of honey and old corn and olives and 
good Canaan diet. 

God does not invite you to a meeting and set out 
a little, scanty program. He wants to give you a re- 
vival. In the backslidden church the preacher takes 
a great deal of time making the announcements. He 
has to tell about the Ladies’ Aid Society and the Foreign 
Missionary Society, the Young Men’s League and the 
donkey party or other entertainment, and when it is 
nearly time to close he throws his congregation a little 
hay-and-fodder sermon and asks them to please “clean 


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that up,” and away they go, still unsatisfied; but the 
Lord Jesus never sends people away hungry. Heaven 
is not impoverished ; God is not scattering husks 
for people to eat. He does not want men to preach 
about the Milky Way instead of feeding the people 
good, spiritual food. He wants them to stop preaching 
about the Milky Way and preach about the milky land. 

Caleb and Joshua, the two faithful spies, came back 
with a sample bunch of grapes, and I imagine I can 
see them as they preached to the people and pointed 
to those grapes. The judges and doctors and back- 
slidden preachers said, “Yes, but we saw great giants 
there, and we cannot take the land”; but Joshua, in- 
stead of arguing, would shake the grapes and say, “Look 
at that!” He was not afraid of giants, for he be- 
lieved theirs was a great God. There are no giants 
in this land of Canaan that will hurt you if you obey 
God and keep the victory. Ten spies were frightened, 

“We are not able to possess the land,” they said; 
“look at the giants.” 

“O,” said Joshua, “look at God !” 

“We are not able to possess the land,” they insisted. 

“Our God is able,” said Caleb. 

The foregoing gives some idea of the work done 
by the first spies sent to view the land of Canaan. 
Ten brought an evil report and two were faithful. 

In time Joshua wished to send spies to search out 
the country and again view the land. He did not want 
as large an official board as Moses selected. He had 
learned a lesson and knew that two good men would 


Rahab — The Sanctified Hotel Keeper 203 

do to send to Jericho. The old janglers and the cowards 
and all those who said they had to sin every day had 
been shaken off, as a snake shakes off its last year’s 
skin, and their bones were left to bleach in the wil- 
derness. Instead of sending twelve men, Joshua sent 
two good men to Jericho. 

There are a few people who are tired of hearing 
that a man cannot be delivered from sin in this life. 
They want deliverance, and long to get into the promised 
land. This experience is for every one. God will give you 
a holy heart and experience such as the early Methodists 
had and such as the Quakers enjoyed when they had 
the power of God resting upon their souls. Glory to 
God ! He does not want you to be impoverished in 
your souls. He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” 
and another verse says, “Blessed are they which do hun- 
ger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be 
filled,” and when you are filled with the Holy Ghost you 
are not hungry and poor in your souls. You do not need 
to live and die in the wilderness. You do not need 
to walk day after day through burning sands. Bless 
God ! Obey Him and He will give you victory and 
bring you into the land of Canaan and there shall no 
enemy be able to stand before you all the days of your 
life. Hallelujah ! 

The two spies went to Jericho and found that the 
inhabitants of the land did not like them. They found 
a hotel which was kept by a lady whose name was 
Rahab. The devil hated her, but notwithstanding the 
fact that she had a bad name, she was the best woman 


204 Sermons on Bible Characters 

in Jericho, and her name is now in the eleventh chapter 
of Hebrews. 

Looking up the records of the hotels of those early 
days, we learn that the inns were not usually run on 
the strictest lines of morality, and on this account there 
came to be some reproach on the hotel business 
in general. Rahab kept a hotel in Jericho, and if you 
will refer to the commentaries, you will find that some 
of them agree that Rahab, the harlot, simply means 
Rahab, the innkeeper. Instead of running her hotel 
as other people conducted theirs, we believe that Ra- 
hab was a wise and prudent woman who proved to 
be the only one in town who had enough spiritual dis- 
cernment to make peace with Joshua’s ambassadors 
and show them kindness. 

Rahab had heard something of the miracle at the 
Red Sea and of the true God, and it did not take 
her very long to find that those men had an experience 
that made them different from other guests who stopped 
at her hotel. She said “Good morning” and after she 
heard the spies say “Glory to God !” a few times, she 
began to ask them about the Red Sea and the kings 
of the Amorites that they had destroyed. 

The spies inquired about the people of Jericho and 
told her that it was not a safe place in which to live 
and that not many in that ungodly city would be saved. 
She began to think something might happen to the spies ; 
but she was not going to lose her chance of learning 
about the Red Sea. I imagine the conversation was 
interesting as they told how the waters of the sea 


Rahab — The Sanctified Hotee Keeper 205 

parted and the whole company of Israelites went through 
dry-shod with Moses, and how Miriam led out all the 
women with timbrels and with dances. We suppose 
if Rahab asked about Moses and whether the whole 
crowd was coming into Canaan, they said: “Moses died 
and the devil tried to get his body, but the Lord took 
him to Heaven and buried his body and they are hunt- 
ing for him yet; but he has gone to his reward. Be- 
fore he left he appointed as leader a man named 
Joshua and he is coming over Jordan and will destroy 
this place and every one in Jericho will perish.” 

“What !” said Rahab, “Do you mean to say that 
Jericho is going to be destroyed and all of its inhabi- 
tants will die?” 

“Yes,” they explained, “that is exactly the way it 
will be.” 

“Why,” she said, “how about me?” 

Then they told her how she could escape the de- 
struction that was coming upon the ungodly of the town. 
She was to bind in the window of her hotel a scarlet 
cord that they might see it when Joshua and his army 
arrived. The covenant also included all whom she 
could bring into the house with her. 

“How can my relatives be saved?” she asked. 

“Be found behind the scarlet line,” they replied. 
“Joshua will soon be here, and if you keep this cov- 
enant and do what we say, we pledge our lives for 
yours that you will be saved.” 

When the deputies from Jericho came to find the 
spies, Rahab gave them the freedom of the hotel and 


20 6 Sermons on Bible Characters 

they hunted around and finally went up to the roof 
and searched, but after walking around on the flax, 
they gave up the search and went back to report their 
failure to find the spies. And that is about the way 
backslidden preachers are doing today. They preach 
over your head and thump the flax a little and do not 
discover your sins to you, and people die by the hun- 
dreds and go to Hell from these modern churches be- 
cause the preachers have not been getting after them 
with sharp pitchforks. I say, for Christ’s sake, let us 
know the worst about our cases ; let us know the 
truth about the condition of our souls before the great 
day of Judgment comes. 

If those deputies from Jericho had been holiness 
preachers they would have taken a six-tined fork and 
put it down into the flax and jumped on it, and sud- 
denly they would have heard some one yell, and then 
they would have removed the flax and revealed the 
men; but those deputies, you understand, who were 
after the spies, did not have holiness. Rahab let the 
spies down by a cord, and they made their escape 
safely from the city. If the conference preachers came 
to wait upon her after that, she could say, “They 
have gone, and if you make haste you may possibly 
overtake them.” 

Rahab remembered her part of the agreement and 
bound that red cord in the window; but she had a 
hard time. The cord may have been pretty, the Bible 
does not say, but it brought reproach, I am sure. If 
you are going to be a saved person, you will have the 


Rahab — The Sanctified Hotee Keeper 207 

hatred of the world. John says, “Marvel not * * * if 
the world hate you,” and Jesus says that they will 
put you out of their synagogues. If, when the pastor 
of your church announces that there will be a straw- 
berry festival, you say, “Never! never will that be per- 
mitted in my church,” all who hear of the stand you 
take will decide that you are against every one 
and they will not wish to hear your victorious testi- 
mony. That is the way they felt about Rahab, I sup- 
pose; but she let the cord hand on the outside of the 
hotel, and we can imagine how the traveling men would 
come, grip in hand, all ready for business, and say, 
“How is this? What do you mean by having that red 
cord hanging out there on the building? Are you go- 
ing to let it stay there?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“If you do not keep that hanging there we will 
stay and pay the best price for the rooms; but we can- 
not stay and have people asking us what that means. 
We must sell goods.” 

“If you will not stay because I keep it you will 
have to go, for it is to be left there. It is there to stay.” 

The traveling men picked up their grips and left. 
They said, “We will have to go. Good day.” 

One talk with the spies made a great change in 
Rahab’s life and caused her to lose interest in the things 
which had formerly occupied her attention. I suppose 
business fell off at Rahab’s hotel. Presently her pas- 
tor called and asked why she was not at the prayer 
meeting Wednesday night, but she had to tell him she 


2o8 Sermons on Bible Characters 

had lost interest in the meetings of the Jericho church. 
He sits down and argues with her. He says, “You 
will lose your influence. You have been a useful woman 
in the church. Do you mean to tell me you are not 
coming back again ?” 

“Yes,” answered Rahab, “that is what I mean.” 

“What are you going to do about the people who 
are not so holy?” 

“I am going to stay right here and preach to all 
who will listen.” 

It was hard for Rahab to talk to her pastor; but 
she did not compromise. I suppose Rahab had been 
the president of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary So- 
ciety. Her mother, who was perhaps the most influential 
woman in the church, calls on her. She is very much dis- 
satisfied with the way Rahab has been doing of late. 
She has heard that Rahab will not come to the 
Wednesday night prayer meeting and that business at 
her hotel is falling off and that the traveling men will 
not stop there. She had heard that Rahab was go- 
ing crazy, that she kept a red cord hanging from the 
window all the time, insisting that it must not be re- 
moved. She had heard that her pastor had called and 
could not do anything to change the mind of the poor, 
“misguided” woman. It seemed sad indeed. “She used 
to be so useful,” the preacher had said; “we could al- 
ways depend upon her to pray at the prayer meeting.” 

And no doubt Rahab could pray. I imagine she 
could pray people through at the altar, and when a 
poor drunkard came in she was not too proud to point 


Rahab — The Sanctified Hotel Keeper 209 

him to a holy life. She would kneel down beside the 
unsaved, and as she prayed the tears would roll from 
her eyes, and presently they would be on their feet 
jumping and shouting and praising God. 

Her dear old mother comes to see her at the hotel, 
but she does not get inside the door before Rahab as- 
sures her that she was never so happy in her life. We 
suppose Rahab said something like this : “Come in ! 
What is the matter, Mother? You look as though you 
have lost your last friend. God bless you 1 I was never 
so happy as I am now. Come on in.” But her mother 
did not like the way Rahab acted. 

A religion that does not divide families is not 
Christ’s religion. When you get God’s salvation your 
friends will oppose you. They will feel the division and 
so will you. They will not like it if you get salvation. 

I suppose Rahab had to coax her mother before 
she would come inside the hotel. Rahab set out an 
easy chair and began talking about salvation. Then 
her mother began to tell her about the revival in the 
old church. “Aren’t you coming to the revival meet- 
ings?” she asked. “They are going to have ‘Billy Mon- 
day’ and he is the most popular man in Jericho and 
all the churches of Jericho are to be united and buy 
ribbons for badges for every one to wear, and it will 
be a great meeting. You must be sure to come.” Ra- 
hab knew that you might as well put a ribbon on a 
billy goat as to put a ribbon or a button marked 
“Jesus Only” on a man who lives in sin every day. 
She knew that there was no power, no strength of 


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God in a badge. She explained again about real sal- 
vation, and said there was only one way to be saved. 
She was crazy according to the world’s ideas, but 
she did not compromise. “My dear mother,” she said, 
“stay with me and get this same salvation.” 

After Rahab had talked and prayed much with her 
mother, suddenly her mother said, “I will get saved; 
I am going to stay.” Rahab said, “Father will soon 
be here and he will be angry because you did not go 
home to get supper.” 

“Well,” said her mother, “I will stay anyway.” If 
Rahab had a musical instrument in the hotel, she no 
doubt played the best song she knew and jumped and 
shouted and praised the Lord. 

Her father came home from work and did not find 
any one at home. He called, “Mother !” and as he went 
to the back door he called, “O Ma ! Mother-r-r-r !” He 
sits down and there is no coffee and no biscuits, and 
he begins to think. (Some men get angry when they 
do not get their supper on time.) He picked up his 
hat and throwing his coat over his shoulders, went 
down the road. He called at the hotel and said, “Wa-1-1, 
Mother here?” 

“Yes,” said Rahab, “she is here.” 

“I want her, please.” 

“Come in, Pa, what is the matter with you?” 

“You tell her to come here to me.” 

Finally they persuaded him to come in and take a 
chair, and he asks, “When are you coming home to 
get my supper?” 


Rahab — The Sanctified Hotel Keeper 21 1 


“We shall have supper here today,” his wife said, 

“I won’t stay.” 

“O come and eat your supper,” and he decides to 
eat supper. After supper they get him down on his 
knees to pray and the Lord comes down and blesses 
them and it is not long before he begins to pray. Do 
you know that woman Rahab was so energetic she 
gathered in some of her kinsfolk? Nearly every one 
got angry when she preached ; but she would sit at the 
instrument and sing songs of kindred sentiments to “The 
Ninety and Nine,” or whichever of those old hymns 
she could sing. Along the boys would come and stand 
outside the windows, and they were very “nice boys,” 
some of them, but once in a while a cat or a stone 
or something would be thrown in. But Rahab did not 
stop preaching. Possibly the little boys liked to swing 
on that cord, and Rahab would have to stop them and 
tell them to let it alone. Some of the boys, in spite 
of everything, got saved. 

Nothing discouraged Rahab. People from other 
churches began to come to see Rahab jump and praise 
the Lord. About the time their pastors had given the 
announcements and commenced the sermon they would 
be asleep. They wished for spiritual life in their 
church, but could not have it, and were sure to be 
on hand the next night at Rahab’s meeting. Some 
of the people said, “They are good meetings.” But 
not every one who attended Rahab’s meetings got 
saved. They gave excuses as to why they would not 
be saved. One lady would excuse herself thus: “As 


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for me, you know I have my Sunday school class at 
our church to train.” 

“Well, we must be going,” they would say at the 
close of the meeting. 

“Must you go?” asked Rahab. 

“Yes, good evening, Rahab. We will be back again 
next Thursday.” 

“But this is the only way,” Rahab began again. 

“O yes, you have your way and we have ours. We 
all differ, you know. Good evening.” 

A point I wish to make plain is that if you start 
for Heaven there must come a separation from un- 
godly and worldly associations, and if you belong to a 
worldly church or club, or have a certain interest in 
the proceeds of a business that is not all right, you will 
have to separate from it. We asked a young lady who 
was seeking salvation, about a certain paper. She 
worked in the office where it was printed. She said 
it had two million subscribers. “Is it worldly?” we in- 
quired. She told us it contained stories about “Jim 
the Crook” and others of the dime-novel character, 
and she could not get her brother at home to stop 
reading it when he got a copy, until he had read it 
through. God will not let us have a part in such things ; 
He will not have us connected with such business. 
There are certain things we must stop doing when we 
go to get saved. If you are working in a department 
store and people stop at your counter and ask whether 
a certain piece of goods is fast colors, you have to say, 
“No, it is not fast colors,” when it is not. If the 


Rahab — The Sanctified Hotee Keeper 213 

floorwalker hears you, perhaps you will be discharged. 
You would better starve to death for keeping saved 
than go to Hell a miserable liar. 

Rahab forsook her friends and quit everything that 
might hinder and preached until her father, mother, 
cousins, uncles and aunts were converted. You ask how 
they were cared for. I do not know; but God Al- 
mighty is able to care for people. When God called 
me to preach I said I would preach the gospel without 
money and without price. I was in business in Chi- 
cago at the time and very gladly laid aside my busi- 
ness and entered religious work exclusively for Jesus’ 
sake, and I tell you such work is nearer Heaven than 
earth and I do not regret the change. If we fight on 
a little longer we shall be inside the City that has 
pearly gates where we shall enjoy the mansions which 
Jesus went ahead to prepare. Brethren, let us go on 
and be true at any cost. 

Rahab and her religion were the talk of the town. 
The preachers of the town discussed the red cord at 
the preachers’ meeting, I suppose. They said every- 
thing against it they could, and yet the red cord stayed 
where Rahab put it and she kept victory and everything 
was all right. She kept her eyes looking toward Jor- 
dan and felt great joy whenever she thought of Joshua 
and the children of Israel. One day as she was look- 
ing from the window she became very happy, and tak- 
ing her handkerchief she waved it and fell back as if 
in a faint. I suppose those around her were fright- 
ened and threw water in her face, but she said, “Glory !” 


214 Sermons on Bible Characters 

“What is the matter ?” they asked. 

“Don’t you know?” she said, and fell back again. 
They raised her up a second time and asked again, 
“What is the matter? Is your mind wandering?” 

“No,” she said, “it is all right.” And when they 
looked out of the window they saw in the distance 
coming over the hills in a serpentine line, amid cloud 
of dust, a vast company of people marching toward tb 
city. The people of Jericho were frightened, for 
dawned upon them that this was a company of tl 
dreaded Israelites about whom they had heard so muc 
and they feared this meant the destruction of the 
city. Rahab could shout, for she had gathered a litt 
company together and they were ready for the coming c 
Joshua and expected to be saved from the destruction. 

Presently the heads of the leading societies in Jer' 
cho came out to see the weary, wayworn company o 
travelers. The president of the Ladies’ Aid Society an 
the president of the Dorcas Society discussed the sound 
ing of the rams’ horns, the shouting and the marching 
They thought: It will not harm any one for them to 
shout. 

However, as the days went by and the people of 
Jericho saw that the Israelites seemed content to do 
nothing but march around the walls of the city once 
a day, their courage began to come again, and as they 
saw that their only weapons appeared to be the homely 
ram’s horns, scorn and derision took the place of fear. 
The power of the God who was in the midst of the 
Israelites was unknown to the people of Jericho. 


Rahab — The Sanctified Hotel Keeper 215 


Maybe you do not recognize this story, but it is 
in the Bible. If Rahab shouted she could be pardoned, 
for she had kept the red cord hanging from the win- 
dow from the time the spies told her the way to be 
saved. As they passed her house and looked up she 
waved her handkerchief and they gave a few jumps 
and assured her that they had not forgotten their prom- 
ise and that she would be saved, and then passed on. 

During the seven days the Israelites were encamped 
outside of Jericho, doubtless at every other hotel in 
Jericho the guests were making fun of the Israelites, 
and the great preachers who wore tall hats and long 
coats said, “Rahab thought she was the only one who 
had religion.” But Rahab said, “It is all right ; I am saved.” 
The fallen churches say that we think we are the only ones 
who are going to Heaven and we think we are better than 
any one else, and I suppose people said the same things 
about Rahab. The townspeople of Jericho continued 
to ridicule, I suppose, until the last journey around the 
walls was made. Joshua at a given time told his men 
to shout, and a mighty blast was blown on the rams' 
horns and at the blare of the rams’ horns, we can see, 
in our imagination, four stalwart angels put their shoul- 
ders against the walls and they tremble and fall. Ac- 
cording to the book of Hebrews, “by faith the walls 
of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about 
seven days.” 

What about the lodges and the missionary societies 
and the people who were busy in the department stores 
and the young people who had been reading novels and 


216 Sermons on Bible Characters 

trashy papers? Joshua did not spare one of them, and 
from the midst of that city there arose smoke and flame 
and the noise of crashing walls and the screams of 
hundreds of injured people who were under the fall- 
ing buildings. The people who went to Rahab’s meet- 
ing and then to some other meeting and said, “I am 
all right too,” were not spared; they too were among 
the dead and dying. Every building went down, except 
the one which had the scarlet cord hanging in the 
window. 

Rahab was a persistent woman. They could not get 
her to stop praying and could not get her to take some 
other religion that was “as good” and that did not cut 
so deeply. They could not get her to put her money 
into backslidden churches. She would not help to main- 
tain a backslidden church and ministry. She did not 
get a salary and did not pay a salary to a compro- 
mising minister. She had not joined misguided reform- 
ers and spent her time trying to make Jericho more 
respectable. She knew that the people of Jericho who 
remained in sin were elected to be damned, and she knew 
no reform movement could save Jericho, but she abso- 
lutely held to the “narrow” way until she could see 
Joshua coming over the fallen walls. 

The spies came to the door and asked, “Is Rahab at 
home?” Yes, she was at home. They had called there 
before and from that time she had kept salvation in 
her soul. If you get salvation you will stop going to 
the fashionable, ungodly places where no one ever gets 
saved, and you will say, “I am going to put my 


Rahab — The Sanctified Hotel Keeper 217 

time and money into getting people saved from an ever- 
lasting Hell.” Her old friends had said, “Come out,” 
but she said, “No, sir, I am going to stay until Joshua 
comes and gets me,” and Joshua came. Her name was 
written in the book, and Joshua did not forget her. 

The churches will hardly speak her name. They say 
she was a harlot; but she was a sanctified innkeeper 
and the devil hated her and heaped reproach upon her, 
and that is the reason she had a bad name. She was the 
best woman in town. The spies had told her how to 
be saved and she was saved, and when you turn to the 
eleventh chapter of Hebrews you read about this lady 
who was absolutely the only one in Jericho who would 
receive the spies, the representatives of God’s people. 

When Jesus came, there was no room in the inn for 
Him, and God’s people are not welcomed into every 
home in town; but if you receive them, you will get 
your reward. In the coming of Joshua and the spar- 
ing of Rahab and her house is a picture of the com- 
ing of the Lord and of His sparing those who have re- 
ceived Him into their hearts. If we are not sanctified 
wholly and separated from the world when Jesus comes, 
we are going to perish with the ungodly and sinners; 
but “blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see 
God” (Matt. 5:8). 

The red cord experience of today is a separate, sanc- 
tified experience, a life separate from worldliness, for- 
mality and wickedness and all things which do not ab- 
solutely give glory to God. Separate yourself from un- 
godly, unholy things and God says He will receive you. 


2l8 


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The Word says, “I will receive you, and will be a Father 
unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith 
the Lord Almighty.” He is coming, and He says, “Be 
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown 
of life.” If we are true, we shall not perish with them 
who believe not, because we have done the will of God. 

I exhort you in the name of Jesus not to listen to 
friends and neighbors and relatives who would dissuade 
you from doing exactly what the Lord has commanded 
you ; but obey Him at any cost, and keep yourselves 
“unspotted from the world.” 


LAZARUS 

DESTINY DISCLOSED 


“There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in 
purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: 
and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was 
laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with 
the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: more- 
over the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to 
pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels 
into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was 
buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, 
and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 
And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on 
me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger 
in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in 
this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou 
in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise 
Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art 
tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there 
is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from 
hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would 
come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, 
father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house.” 
Luke 15: 19-27. 


SERMON ELEVEN 


LAZARUS 

DESTINY DISCLOSED 

F ROM the lips of none other than the Son of God 
came the solemn words contained in our text. If 
the account is overdrawn, Jesus Christ exaggerated; if 
it is not true, Jesus Christ is a liar. I want to tell you 
that these are the words of Jesus, and as these solemn 
truths fall upon our ears, let us determine to govern 
our lives and shape our destinies with them in mind. 
The way in which we receive the truth will determine 
our state and destiny throughout eternity. People have 
pet theories and make up certain dogmas and form 
creeds and build churches, but it would save them a lot 
of money if they would believe the Bible. If people 
would read and really believe this account of Lazarus, 
it would save building and supporting Universalist 
churches, for the Scriptures say that the rich man, when 
he died, went to Hell, and that he has to stay there 
forever. 

If Dr. Dowie’s followers had read and believed the 
truths of this chapter, they would have been saved from 
believing Dr. Dowie to be Elijah III. The Doctor said 
that he would preach in Hell and get lost souls saved, 
and his followers expect that Hell will finally be emptied 


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Sermons on Bible Characters 


of its inhabitants and that its sufferers will go on up 
to Heaven. We never, during the later part of his 
career, disputed the probability of Dr. Dowie’s going to 
Hell, but we do say that the gulf is fixed so that when 
a man once gets in he is there to stay. Do you not see the 
folly of paying preachers to tell people of a future 
probation ? 

There is no more diabolical heresy hatched in Hell 
than that of a second probation. The truth is that if 
you neglect the salvation of your soul in this life, you 
will drop into Hell and never have a chance to get 
out through all the cycles of eternity. If people had 
believed this scripture, they would have been saved 
from building a Roman Catholic church. What does 
the Bible say? It teaches that when a man gets into 
Hell, the gulf is fixed and he can never get out; and 
any church or doctrine which says there is some place, 
a future purgatory, for purifying people after they die, 
is pleasing the devil. God Almighty does not sanc- 
tion such a doctrine, and His Son said that when the 
rich man left this life he dropped into Hell and that there 
was no escape. 

Numbers of young men and women, forgetful of 
God, are joining organizations, churches, labor unions 
and different societies, in order to gain power, finan- 
cial standing and strength. Unless they repent they 
will be lost. No matter how much money you ex- 
pend for prayers and masses and ceremonies they will 
not afford relief to your screaming, agonized, tormented 
spirit as you wrestle with the billows of damnation. 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 223 

Any one who leaves the confines of this life without 
being sanctified wholly, plunges into the realms of de- 
spair. The moment Hell’s portals fly open and its 
walls inclose him, his immortal spirit sinks into the re- 
gions of damnation, and all hope of return is gone 
forever. 

What is Hell? It is a hopeless, dark, bottomless 
abyss filled with despairing creatures gnawing their 
tongues and screaming with anguish, with every nerve 
alert, alive and on fire, while the worm that never 
dies gnaws at their innermost nature. This faint de- 
scription is given by Jesus not alone to warn of an 
unending Hell, but to teach other truths also, to which 
I would call your attention. 

The poor man of the story whose name was Laza- 
rus was laid at the rich man’s gate, full of sores. He 
had no friends who cared enough for him to clothe 
and feed him; he did not have adequate food; he did 
not belong to any influential secret order; his family 
would receive no death benefit at his demise and his 
widow would not be waited upon by people in regalia, 
but Lazarus had salvation. When he died, a hundred 
carriages did not follow his body to the cemetery and 
it did not take a separate vehicle to convey the 
flowers to the grave. There were no floral tributes, 
there were no harps with one string broken. When 
that poor man died at the rich man’s gate, people looked 
at him and passed by on the other side. This world 
did not care about him after he was gone. They may 
have flung a few pennies to him the day before, but 


224 Sermons on Bible Characters 

they would not have to give him any more. He was 
a man for whom politicians had not cared, a man whom 
society had not recognized, but there is a Country up 
yonder that was tremendously interested in him and 
gladly welcomed him when he left this world. Thank 
God, if you love the Lord Jesus and are trusting your 
soul and body to His care, all Heaven is bending over 
you and is interested in you. You might pile up your 
riches, your oil stocks and railroad bonds and own more 
than any one else in the world, but Heaven would not 
be as interested in you as in a man like Lazarus. 

I read that Jesus was in the temple and saw men 
and women casting their offerings into the treasury. 
The rich came and put in the tithes of their abundance, 
but finally a poor widow stole up and put in two mites 
which make a farthing and perhaps wiped the tears 
from her eyes, and Jesus said, “Verily I say unto 
you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they 
all.” The churches and great societies of this world are 
not particularly interested in the poor widow who comes 
to church wearing a shawl over her head because she 
has not adequate clothing; but there are none who 
trust in the arm of the Lord Jesus but that He will 
give the angels charge to keep them in all their ways. 
In their hands they shall be borne up lest at any time 
they dash their foot against a stone. Heaven is in- 
terested in people for whom the world does not care. 

This story has another side. There was a rich man. 
The neighbors looked at and admired his beautiful, 
finely furnished home upon the boulevard. When- 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 225 

ever his carriage was seen to pass down the street 
every one felt envious. He had but to draw a check 
and he could have all the delicacies of the season at 
his command and a sumptuous repast of five or six 
courses set before him. A moment of time, as it 
were, intervenes and he has passed into eternity. Tear 
aside the veil and see him screaming in torment. No 
one envies him any more. He catches sight of Abra- 
ham in the Celestial City. The rich man had been 
prominent in the world and perhaps was on the “board 
of trustees” of the old Jewish church and probably knew 
exactly the phrases which they used in their prayers; 
hence, he cried, “Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that 
he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my 
tongue.” 

When souls leave this life there are sudden changes. 
The poor but sanctified person of yesterday receives 
an abundant entrance into Heaven today, and is made 
inexpressibly rich. Lazarus, who yesterday scarcely 
knew how to get along, is today walking down the boule- 
vards of Heaven. The rich man, who yesterday was liv- 
ing in affluence and surrounded by luxury, is a pauper 
today screaming in the torments of the damned. 

If there is one subject of which the Bible speaks more 
often than of another, it is that of the marvelous offering 
of the Son of God and of how He suffered and died for 
sinners. Though you may be a sinner and weighed down 
on account of your sins, within five minutes your load 
of sin may be removed by the blood of Jesus and you 
may become a son of God and an heir of Heaven. 


226 


Sermons on Bible Characters 


The Bible distinctly states that Jesus has gone to 
prepare mansions for His followers. He has been 
in Heaven for more than nineteen hundred years, 
and He will enter the name of any person, who will 
give his heart to God, in the Lamb’s Book of Life 
and will give him a title to a mansion in Heaven. There 
are so many people who have backslidden and gone 
to Hell, making vacant the mansions which had been 
prepared for them, that one may have pretty nearly his 
choice on the avenues of Heaven. You may not own 
anything here, but if you become a follower of the 
meek and lowly Jesus, you will step into Heaven one 
of these fine mornings and Abraham will take you by 
the hand and lead you to your mansion on one of those 
wide, gold-paved streets. That sounds visionary, but 
it is founded on the gospel. 

We may get from the account of Lazarus a little 
idea of what righteousness means. The Bible tells 
of a feast that a certain rich man gave. He bade the 
servants to call certain ones, but those who were in- 
vited were too busy to come. One man had bought 
a yoke of oxen and must go and prove them, one had 
married a wife and another said that he had some real 
estate to look after and asked to be excused. The 
landlords and the stock raisers and the members of the 
Ladies’ Aid Society did not have time to go to the 
feast, and what was the outcome ? The people from the 
highways and hedges were invited, and the poor and 
the maimed and the halt and the blind were bidden, 
and thus the feast was furnished with guests. 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 227 

The rich men of the world do not appreciate sal- 
vation and not many of the mighty people are going 
,to be saved. The kings of the earth are busy with their 
gaming tables and wine suppers and do not care for 
Jesus; but here and there we find a small company 
of people blind and lame and with halting step, so far 
as worldly society is concerned, but they have their faces 
toward Heaven and are pressing on to Glory. Thank 
God, we consider it a privilege to be of such a com- 
pany, and some day we shall be caught up to meet 
the Lord in the air. We shall put off this mortal coil 
and put on our glorified bodies and go to live for- 
ever with the Lord. We do not belong to the rich class 
here, but we shall belong to the aristocracy of the skies 
and have a magnificent mansion, a glistening robe and a 
crown incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away, 
prepared in Heaven for us. 

Lazarus was not left full of sores at the rich man’s 
gate forever. Jesus reported that he was away over 
yonder in Abraham’s bosom. The rich man tried to 
get him away, but Abraham only hugged him more 
closely and said he could not go. Hallelujah ! His 
sickness was over forever. There will be no rheuma- 
tism in Heaven, no lameness, no broken bones, no use- 
less arms, no crippled backs. People who die in Je- 
sus will nevermore know what it is to suffer pain and 
sorrow. One of these days there will be a resurrec- 
tion, and though the mortal was sown in dishonor, it 
shall be raised in glory and though it was sown in cor- 
ruption, it shall be raised in incorruption. Then shall 


228 Sermons on Bible Characters 

be brought to pass the saying which is written, “Death 
is swallowed up in victory.” Thank God! Some fine 
day not far distant, if Jesus tarries, we shall say 
to Death thus, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, 
where is thy victory?” and mount up through the air to 
our Celestial Home. This thought is a great encourage- 
ment to any one who is walking with God. 

We shall have no more pain or sorrow in Heaven. 
There are no doctors practicing medicine in Heaven. 
If any doctors get there they will have left their 
satchels behind before departing this life. Jesus is 
the great Physician, and a man who is on his way to 
Heaven does not need plasters on his back. He will 
get there because he has backbone enough to get along 
without plasters. If the lions examined Daniel’s back- 
bone they did not find one of Alcock’s Porous Plasters. 

The rich man called for water to cool his parched 
tongue. When he was informed that he could not get 
so much as a drop, he said, “I want Lazarus to go 
and warn my five brethren that they come not hither. 
I am tormented in this flame.” Friend, you are not go- 
ing to do any missionary work after you leave this 
world. You will do your missionary work while here, 
or you will never do any. Now is the time to send 
missionaries. How about your brothers? Have they 
been warned? How about your boys and girls? 

I remember that years ago when I used to break 
into the room where my dear mother was, I often found 
her on her knees praying. I would ask her what she 
was praying for, and found that she was praying for 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 229 

the large family which God had given her. She was 
asking Him to save them from their sins and keep 
them from the snares of this wicked old world, and 
we can feel those prayers protecting us today. 

Later, when I was old enough and went to work 
down town amidst sin and iniquity, it seemed impossible 
to yield to the temptations that commonly surround the 
young in large cities, because that wall of prayer was 
around me. Mother and Father had been putting 
prayers between me and Hell, and I thank God for those 
prayers. We read of the same kind of faithful Chris- 
tians in history. Some of them were hated and kicked 
out of England, and they climbed aboard the Mayflower 
and landed over here in the dead of winter, on a cold, 
bleak rock. They were sturdy people. 

The parents of today are not the kind of people 
that our parents were. Instead of the mothers of this 
age spending their time in fasting and prayer, they 
are in front of long mirrors working crimping irons 
and taking white powder and wiping it all over their 
faces. The modern mother is concerned only to have 
her daughters and sons become favorites in society, and 
the father is asked whether he went to see the danc- 
ing master in regard to his daughter’s 1 education in 
that line, and whether he paid her tuition and arranged 
for a term of lessons on behavior in the ballroom. 
The parents who are doing these things will wring their 
hands and tear their hair in Hell-fire. That beauti- 
ful daughter will meet you in Hell because you sent 
her to that French dancing master. Mother, you will 


16 


230 Sermons on Bible Characters 

curse the day you gave her birth. And every man 
or woman who must pay the penalty for their wrong- 
doing will swear and curse when in Hell they meet 
the preacher who failed to preach against worldly pleas- 
ures and did not tell them they were going to Hell 
unless they repented. 

You may sneer at the people of God who are under 
reproach and afflictions; you may laugh and scoff at 
the preaching of the Word of truth, but when you 
come to die, you will want one of God’s poor saints 
who is unwelcome in the high-toned churches, some 
one who has God and who has hold of the Throne, 
to pray for you; or you will, as did this rich man, 
lift up your eyes in Hell and ask to have some one sent 
to warn your unsaved relatives that they go not to 
that awful place. 

Abraham said to the rich man, “Thou in thy life- 
time receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus 
evil things : but now he is comforted, and thou art tor- 
mented.” If you are having a hard time in this country 
for Jesus’ sake, be “faithful unto death,” for you are 
going to be one of the millionaires on the other side. 
Brethren, I would rather take my hard time in this 
country and go to Heaven, than to have an easy time 
here and then go into everlasting fires to weep and wail 
forever. The modern preachers do not say anything 
about Hell-fire. They say it is an old, worn-out doc- 
trine which such men as Peter Cartwright, John Wes- 
ley and George Fox used to preach. Higher criticism 
is preached in these days of great universities and 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 231 

learned professors instead of this rugged old doctrine of 
the Bible. You cannot, however, by looking into the 
original manuscripts of the Bible, find any Jesus Christ 
except the One who warned men of Hell-fire and 
brimstone and of the eternal punishment of liars, blas- 
phemers, false professors and unholy people. 

Yesterday Lazarus was outside the gate, poor and 
despised. The rich man passed him by unheeded, but 
when in Hell, he begged Abraham to send Lazarus 
to preach to his brothers. Did Abraham let him go? 
No, he said, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, 
neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from 
the dead.” Was that true? Suppose we could bring 
Dives back to this earth. Suppose he were to appear 
before you, wrapped in the fires of Hell, his eyes 
flashing with burning brimstone and the smoke of the 
pit coming from him — what would you do? You would 
faint dead away, and if you should ever come to, your 
friends would tell you that it was a hallucination and 
that you did not see any such sight. 

If you will not hear the prophets of God or heed 
the warnings of the Bible, Jesus said you would not 
repent if one should rise from the dead and preach to 
you. Jesus preached all these truths in the utmost sin- 
cerity of His heart, and we present them to you. He 
was a Man who had no place to lay His head; He 
wandered from one city to another and had no home 
which He could call His certain dwelling place. If you 
follow Jesus you will be on the same line and have no 
certain dwelling so far as this world is concerned, for 


232 Sermons on Bible Characters 

the Bible says in Hebrews, “Here have we no continu- 
ing city, but we seek one to come.” 

We cannot tell you that it is right to lay up treasures 
in the banks of earth. If you believe in an awful, 
eternal Hell you will spend your all to save people 
from that awful place of torment. If I should see a 
steamer wrecked and her crew perishing and a lot of 
people sinking into the lake without any possible way 
to help themselves, I would put out any boat that I 
had at my command and do all in my power to res- 
cue them. If I would not do that you would say I am 
worse than a murderer. The rich men of today are 
piling up hundreds, thousands and millions of dollars, 
until we have in our generation the richest men who 
have lived since the time of Jesus. They are holding 
fast their riches and are soul-murderers. The whole 
world is going to Hell as fast as it can; men are sink- 
ing into a bottomless abyss of torment under the weight 
of the sins in which they indulge. Suddenly some one 
is cut off by death and the preacher tells how benevo- 
lent the man was and that he is now up yonder in the 
abode of bliss; but he had no more than passed from 
the confines of earth until he was wailing in Hell. 

It was the poor man, not the rich man, who went 
to Heaven. We hear a funeral sermon preached and 
a rich man’s character is extolled, yet the preacher 
knows that he drank and swore and that no doubt 
he went to Hell. Did you ever hear a funeral sermon 
preached in which the preacher said the deceased did 
not go to Heaven? The preachers always say the de- 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 


233 


ceased went to Heaven. Should he even intimate any- 
thing to the contrary, he would not be allowed to talk for 
five minutes. One can actually commit every sin in the 
catalogue and still have the floral tributes at his funeral, 
“gates ajar” and a harp with one string broken. But 
it is a great display of hypocrisy. He may have on the 
coffin one of the “At Rest” coffin plates that can be 
purchased so cheaply. They are always in stock, so 
it is easy to get one and screw it on; but before the 
plate is fastened to the coffin, the soul of the departed 
sinner is screaming in Hell-fire and pleading for water. 
The future of the lost in that awful place of torment 
where rich people go is beyond the power of language 
to describe. 

You may think I am overdrawing the picture, but 
if you have a great pile of money and hold your purse 
strings tightly while people are going to Hell, that in 
itself is enough to send you there. You may have no 
money and still be rich in many other things, so that 
you cannot enter Heaven. It is easier for a camel to 
go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man 
to enter Heaven. You see God’s people preaching on 
the streets while the boys throw eggs at them, and 
you say, “I would not be in that crowd for all the 
world.” Why not? You have a reputation to sustain 
and you would not be willing to go with God’s despised 
people and be laughed at and spit upon. It would 
cause you to lose certain friends that you have. Some 
have riches of reputation, some of ambition, some are 
rich in fame and many are rich in other things that 


234 Sermons on Bible Characters 

are prized by this world; but they are going to Hell 
unless they lay all their wealth at Jesus’ feet. 

The rich man dies and the undertaker sets the cof- 
fin in an attractive position in the room and then it 
is beautifully decorated with flowers. Hats are re- 
moved and respectful audience is given to the preacher 
while he tells of the philanthropy of the deceased, of 
the colleges he has endowed, of the way he spent his 
money and how he at the last gave all that he had 
to benevolences, and every one says it is all right. 
The preacher says, “It hath pleased our Father in 
Heaven to call this man Home,” and while he is preach- 
ing the sermon, the man is screaming in Hell for a 
drop of water to cool his parched tongue. That is the 
way it will be with you if you do not get right with 
God. You are going to Hell unless you repent and 
forsake your selfish life. 

Now and then a rich brewer dies. His friends get 
some preacher to tell what a good man he has been, and 
while the funeral sermon is being preached, there are 
men who are not able to. get around on account of the 
beer which that man manufactured. The minister is 
preaching into Heaven the man who has helped multi- 
tudes on their way to Hell. 

A brief notice appeared in the newspaper (if they 
had newspapers in those days), saying, “Lazarus, the 
poor old beggar full of sores, died yesterday at the 
gate of Dives. Any one may have his body.”' No one 
cared to have his body; but that did not keep God 
away from the scene, and the Bible tells us that the 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 235 

angels came and carried him into Abraham’s bosom. 
I want to have angels at my deathbed, don’t you? 

Right at the time when your mother and father 
cast you out and say you are crazy because you 
will not stay in the lodges and labor unions and do 
the way you used to do, you will find Jesus shaking 
hands with you and telling you about another Home 
which He has prepared for you. The blind man whose 
eyes had been opened by Jesus testified in the syna- 
gogue and the priests put him out; but he had not 
gone far when Jesus met him and comforted him. 

Look over the directories of Heaven and you will 
not find the names of the great and famous of this 
world. “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many 
mighty, not many noble, are called.” If a gentleman 
with a gold-headed cane gets converted, God will show 
him how he can have that gold melted into money, so 
it can be spent in getting others saved, and that man 
will begin to send out missionaries. 

There is very little difference between the rich men 
of the board of trade or stock exchange, and the com- 
mon burglars who break through windows to get the 
gold. This farce that is passing so easily for salva- 
tion is not taking people to Heaven, and if a board 
of trade man gets salvation he will not gamble another 
penny on the board of trade, but will be honest and 
upright and keep the love of God in his heart. The 
“revival” that sets hundreds of board of trade and 
stock exchange men and society leaders to singing the 
“Glory” song at ocean summer resorts, while some 


236 Sermons on Bible Characters 

young fellow at the lake front is falling into the water, 
having committed suicide by blowing his brains out be- 
cause of the greed of those money-getters, is not a re- 
vival that sets the angels to singing. 

You look at the business card of that young sui- 
cide and trace his history for a few hours back, and 
you will understand what is the matter. He went to 
the board of trade in Chicago and lost everything. 
The market went against him and he blew his brains 
out and dropped into the lake. Fortunes are lost in a 
day on the board of trade. What about the man who 
got the money? He is at the front of the “revival/’ 
so called, singing, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name,” 
and, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” and he is 
the cause of that man’s suicide. He is singing, “That 
will be Glory for Me.” If it will be glory for him 
the Bible is not true. It may be glory such as this 
world can give for a brief time, but such a person will 
never get into Heaven. Be not deceived by this mod- 
ern, popular, secret-order preaching. Be not deceived 
when the person whom you know to be licentious and 
wicked dies without thorough repentance and they tell 
you how good he was and that he is in Heaven. His 
soul was in Hell before his body was cold. The old 
Bible is true. 

• Like Lazarus, God’s people are unknown in this 
world, but well-known in Heaven. You may wear a 
shawl over your head in this country, have your name 
cast out as evil for Jesus’ sake and be looked upon as 
the offscouring and filth of the world, but the angels 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 23 7 

are interested in you. Your relatives may be ashamed 
of your poverty, but when you die and. go to Heaven 
you will find that there you are inconceivably rich. 

How did Stephen fare when he began to preach? 
Stephen, what is the trouble? Why did you make that 
Speech? Do you suppose any one said he was rash 
and provoked that rock throwing? There the people 
were taking bricks and pounding his ribs. You can read 
about it in the book of Acts. What did Stephen do? 
He told them of Christ and told the crucifiers of the 
Son of God what they had done and it cost him his 
life. They said he was blaspheming God and they be- 
gan to throw stones at him; but while they were break- 
ing his head, a heavenly smile came over his face, and 
as they looked they saw him raise his head and heard 
him cry, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” While they 
were gnashing on him with their teeth he saw the 
heavens opened and Jesus standing on the right hand 
of God. Glory to God! I suppose Jesus was sitting 
at the right hand of the Father and when He saw them 
piling rocks upon Stephen and bruising his body and 
breaking his bones, He could hardly wait to welcome 
him into His Father’s home. He stood up and with 
outstretched hands parted the heavens and Stephen’s 
spirit leaped from his bruised body and in a moment 
was “safe in the arms of Jesus.” 

Maybe you think this world will love you when you 
get saved and sanctified, but I tell you that the world 
will feel like stoning you until you die; but the Scrip- 
tures say you are then to “rejoice, and be exceeding 


238 Sermons on Bible Characters 

glad : for great is your reward in heaven.” How was the 
testimony of the good spies received on their return 
from Canaan? They told of the good fruit and brought 
back a sample so that the people need not take their 
word without good evidence, and how did the people 
feel? They said, “Let us stone them with stones till 
they die.” 

If you are not persecuted in this world you are 
not going to Heaven, for “all that will live godly in 
Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” There is no easy 
route. You cannot go to Heaven by singing board- 
of-trade, “That-will-be-Glory-for-Me” songs. The one 
who gets the salvation of God in his soul and the 
one who will finally be received into Glory is the one 
who does not deny Jesus and His people down here 
in this world. The Bible says, “If we suffer, we shall 
also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny 
us.” We might mention one person after another 
who really thinks he is on his way to Heaven, and 
some are sincere in thinking that they are all right; 
but they are having an easy time in this world, and 
they are going to have a hard time in the world to 
come. Without repentance they are going to miss 
Heaven and are sure to suffer eternal punishment. 

The rich people are not going to Heaven. Several 
verses in the sixth chapter of Revelation corroborate 
my text and bear me out in what I am saying. They 
say that the kings of the earth and the rich men and 
the mighty men will some day call for rocks and moun- 
tains to hide them from the wrath of God and the 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 239 

Lamb. You may think King Echvard is going to Heaven 
and that Emperor William and the czar of Russia will 
be among the saved and you may expect to meet all 
of the kings there, but the rich people of the earth who 
are enjoying fame and honor, men to whom the world 
is bowing, will not be there. 

You may think God’s people in this country are a 
poor looking crowd, but God says, “Man looketh on 
the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the 
heart.” While God Almighty’s people through all ages 
have been a self-denying, persecuted people, deprived of 
many of the luxuries of life, it will be on this earth only, 
for the Bible says that when we get to Heaven we shall 
hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall 
the sun light on us nor any heat, but the Lamb who 
is in the midst of the Throne shall feed us and shall 
lead us to living fountains of water, and God shall 
wipe away all tears from our eyes. 

The rich do not feel the need of salvation. They 
think a little more wealth will satisfy their immortal 
souls. They are increased with goods and have need 
of nothing. They go to a church where a form of re- 
ligion is carried out and where the singing is good and 
there they rent a pew and let this world go on to 
Hell. Many people have been called of God to use 
their means in sending forth laborers into the harvest 
field. People whom God called to the foreign field 
twenty years ago are today teaching Latin and musty 
Greek roots, or are engaged in some kind of business, 
and are letting the heathen go to Hell rather than obey 


240 


Sermons on Bibee Characters 


God and lead souls to Him. They have a good edu- 
cation, but they are going to Hell. God has called them 
and He is angry with them because they have not heeded. 
His awful fury will be wreaked on all those who have 
turned a deaf ear to His oft-repeated calls. They have 
their education, their friends, their society, their danc- 
ing, their insurance, and are letting the whole world 
pour into Hell. 

Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let 
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow 
me.” Are we living in an age of self-denial? Walk 
down the streets and you see that the show windows 
are full of laces and silks, tapestry and curtains, and 
what are they there for? They are there to be pur- 
chased by people who have their hearts set on the things 
of this world. The command of Jesus is to deny your- 
self and take up your cross. Here is a woman kneel- 
ing upon a richly carpeted floor in an elegant home. 
God is talking to her soul and He tells her to take 
down those curtains, give the price of them for work 
in the foreign fields and present herself at the Bible 
training home; but she says, “I want to keep these 
things and be a teacher of the religion of the Lord 
Jesus Christ too.” That is what some might call self- 
denial; but Matthew, who was sitting at the receipt 
of custom, left his salary and his fine home and fol- 
lowed Jesus. That is the kind of self-denial God wants. 

The sons of Zebedee were mending their nets, when 
along came the Son of God. He had no standing. Peo- 
ple looked at Him and said He was a man who was 


Lazarus — Destiny Disclosed 241 

under the reproach and stigma of unfortunate birth, 
but He did not speak the second time until these two 
sons of Zebedee had left their father and their nets 
and followed Him. They seem never to have had a 
thought of hanging on to their possessions from the 
first moment when they got a view of the face of 
Jesus. They bore all the reproach that such a course 
would bring upon them and through the remainder of 
their lives showed their fidelity to the One they loved. 
They were not left without reward, for when death 
came they were taken to Heaven where they are now 
listening to the angels’ singing. 

It may mean much for you to turn your back 
on this world and walk with God, but if you do it, you 
will hear the song of the angels one of these days. 
The first step costs, but every step thereafter pays. 
The rich man went to Hell and was told that he had 
had the good things in this life and likewise Lazarus 
evil things, but that now Lazarus was comforted while 
he was tormented. I would rather leave all and fol- 
low Jesus than to meet the fate of this rich man. The 
rich have not left all. I notice they are not study- 
ing to see how many souls they can save from Hell 
and how much they can give to save men from sin 
and from shame and from everlasting torture. They 
are getting as many delicacies as possible to eat; 
they are trying to make one window into a nice, ori- 
ental show and another into some other kind of a show 
— anything to show that they are ahead of their neigh- 
bors — but the people who are ahead in this world’s 


242 Sermons on Bible Characters 

estimation and who are constantly striving to outstrip 
their fellow men, are not going to be ahead hereafter. 

The day is coming when those who have walked 
with God and have lived a life of self-denial and have 
been saved from sin while on this earth, will meet in 
Heaven and thank God that they belong to the com- 
pany of those who have come up out of great tribu- 
lation and have washed their robes and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb; therefore are they 
before the Throne and serve Him day and night in 
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